Blakemore and Cooper (1970) Flashcards
What was the aim of the research by Blakemore and Cooper?
Investigate the effect of kittens visual development in relation to the environment.
Whether the are exposed to vertical stripes or horizontal stripes only, the kittens could move freely.
What research method was used in research by Blakemore and Cooper?
A lab experiment using an independent measures design.
What was the IV in research by Blakemore and Cooper?
Whether the kittens were reared in a horizontal or a vertical environment.
What was the DV in research by Blakemore and Cooper?
Their visuomotor behaviour once they were placed in an illuminated environment.
What is a visuomotor?
The ability to synchronise visual information with physical movement
What was the sample used in research by Blakemore and Cooper?
Kittens (studied from birth until this report was compiled) were randomly allocated to one of the two conditions.
Two of the kittens (one reared in a horizontal and one in a vertical environment) were used to study neurophysical effects.
Outline the procedure used in research by Blakemore and Cooper?
Kittens were kept in a dark room until the experiment began when they were 2 weeks old.
From the age of two 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.
No corners, no edges to its floor.
It could not even see its body as it wore a wide black collar.
This was stopped when the kittens were 5 months old, they were taken to a well lit room with objects in and observed.
What were the key behavioural findings from this research?
They guiding them selves 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 quickly recovered from many of the deficiencies and within a total of about 10 hours of normal vision they showed startled
responses and visual placing and would jump with ease from a chair to the floor.
However, some of their defects were permanent. They always followed moving objects with very clumsy, jerky head movements. They often tried to touch things moving on the other side of the room, well beyond their reach.
What were the key nuerophysiological findings from this research?
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 distinct orientation selectivity.
75% of neurons in both cats were binocular as normal cat, however their sensitivities were different and abnormal.
What are the possible conclusions from Blakemore and Coopers study?
Brain development is clearly affected by early experiences and environmental factors rather than just genetics and there is clear evidence of brain plasticity.
The environment can determine perception at both a behavioural and physiological level
