Blackmore and Cooper (Biological Area)

Question 1

B & C Aim

Answer 1

To Investigate the effect of kittens visual development in relation to the environment. Whether they are exposed to vertical stripes or horizontal stripes only, the kittens could move freely

Question 2

B & C IV and DV

Answer 2

IV:
Whether the kittens were in a horizontal or vertical environment

DV:
Their behaviour once they were placed in an illuminated environment

Question 3

B & C Sample

Answer 3

2 kittens randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (one horizontal and in one vertical environmental) were used to study neurophysical effects

Question 4

B & C Procedure

Answer 4

Kittens were kept in a dark room until the experiment began when they were 2 weeks old.

From the age of 2 weeks they were put into a special apparatus for an average of about five hours per day

The kitten stood on a glass platform inside a cylinder covered in black and white stripes either vertical or horizontal

This was stopped when the kittens were 5 months old, they were taken to a well lit room with objects in and observed.

Question 5

B & C Behavioural findings

Answer 5

They guiding themselves mainly by touch. No startled response when an object was thrusted towards them. They showed ‘behavioural blindness in that the kittens raised in the horizontal environment could not detect vertically aligned objects and vice versa.

The kittens recovered from their deficiencies and within a total of 10 hours of normal vision, they started showing startled responses and visual placing and would jump with ease from a chair to the floor.

However some of the defects were permanent and they always followed moving objects with very clumsy, jerky head movements.

Question 6

B & C Neurophsyiological findings

Answer 6

Horizontal plane recognition cells did not fire off in the kitten from the vertical environment and vertical plane cells did not fire off in the kitten from the horizontal environment so there was a distinct orientation selectivity