Blakemoore and Cooper (1970) - Brain development

What is the aim of this study?

To investigate the development of the primary visual cortex in cats and to find out if some of its properties such as orientation selectively are innate or learned

What is the experiment type?

Lab experiment

What is the independent variable?

Whether the kittens were in a vertical or horizontal environment

What is the dependent variable?

The kittens behavior afterwards, whether the kittens could detect vertically aligned objects if never seen before (and vice versa)

What experimental design was used?

Independent measures - kittens were placed into one environment (one condition)

What is the sample?

2 kittens - one for each condition studied from birth until 5 months old

What was the procedure?

• Kittens placed into either horizontal environment or vertical environment for 5 hours at a time, otherwise in complete darkness

• Afterwards, kittens placed into well-lit, furnished room for several hours each week

• At 7.5 weeks, the kittens were anaesthetised so their neuropsychology could be examined

What are the results?

• Showed no startle response when object was thrust towards them

• Kittens raised in horizontal environment could not detect vertically aligned objects and vice versa - behavioral blindness

• Neuropphysiological results

• However, the kittens quickly recovered, everything becoming normal within 10 hours but impaired visual tracking and depth perception

What conclusions can we gather?

Shows brain plasticity by kittens adjusting visual cortex