Blakemore & Cooper

Question 1

Define
Binocular & Monocular vision
Depth perception
Visual tracking
Brain Plasticity
Visual cortex

Answer 1

Binocular - seeing things with both eyes

Monocular - seeing things with one eye

Depth perception - the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D) and how far an object is away from us

Brain plasticity - brains ability to change as a result of an experience

Visual cortex - part of brain which processes visual infomation

Question 2

Background of Blakemore & Cooper

Answer 2

Research on kittens
They were raised wearing a mask so one eye saw vertical stripes and the other horizontal stripes (monocular vision)

found eye that only seen vertical stripes could only detect vertical + vice versa

suggests neurons in visual cortex showed plasticity - develop according to enviro experienced

Question 3

Why did blakmore and cooper carry out their study

Answer 3

problem with research on kittens as their method was that the striped environment was fixed inside goggles so couldn’t see stripes in real world

so they used different method allowing kittens free movement and binocular vision but still restricting visual experience to vertical or horizontal stripes

Question 4

Aim of Blakemore & Cooper

Answer 4

too see whether kittens who are raised with only vertical or horizontal lines behave differently and also if this affects neurons in their visual cortex

Question 5

Sample of Blakemore & Cooper

Answer 5

11 Laboratory raised kittens

housed in complete darkness until 2 weeks of age

Question 6

Research method of Blakemore & Cooper

Answer 6

Lab experiment

Manipulation of IV = whether they reared with horizontal lines or vertical lines

Measurement of DV = kittens visuomotor behaviour ( synchronised movement with what they saw)
= if they could detect vertically/horizontally aligned objects
= activity of neurons

controlled extraneous variables
= how many hours kittens were in the cylinder per day

Question 7

Experimental design of Blakemore & Cooper

Answer 7

Independent measures

half kittens were put in cylinder with vertical stripes

other half were put in cylinder with horizontal stripes

Question 8

Procedure of B&C

Answer 8

From the age of two weeks each kitten was put inside a tall cylinder covered with either vertical (V) or horizontal (H) black and white stripes for 5 hours a day

kittens wore a wide black collar to restrict visual field

routine stopped when they were 5 months old and they were gradually introduced to a small, well-lit toom

their visual reactions were observed

at 7.5 months, two of kittens one from each environment, were anaesthetised so neurons in visual cortex could be examined

Question 9

Why couldnt kittens see their own body? Why is it important?

Why did routine stop at 5 months old?

Answer 9

wore a wide black collar that restricted its visual field to a width of 130 ^C
as a control as if saw own bodies, they might have seen horisontal/vertical stripes

previous research suggests its beyond the ‘critical period’ for biological changes in vision in cats

Question 10

Findings through observation in B&C

Answer 10

kittens showed no visual placing when brought to the table top + no startle response when object thrust towards them

showed behavioural blindness
> kittens raised in H enviro couldn’t detect vertically aligned objects + vice versa

Question 11

What is visual placing
What is a startle response

Answer 11

visual placing - reflex of animals in placing legs to reach a surface

startle response - automatic response eg. tensing muscles

Question 12

Results of neurophysiological examination

Answer 12

kitten that was reared with vertical lines had neurons that only fired to vertical images (vice versa)

75% of cells in cats were binocular

Question 13

Conclusion of B&C

Answer 13

visual experiences eg. only being raised with V/H lines in early life of kittens can change their brain & behaviour

Question 14

Generalisability of B&C

Answer 14

cant generalise findings to humans
>humans are more complex than animals

Only two cats had neurophysiological examination
> not representative of all cats

Question 15

Reliability of B&C

Answer 15

standardised procedure
- all kittens put in cylinder from 2weeks to 5 months for 5 hours a day
- all wore black collar to restrict visual field

Question 16

Applications of B&C

Answer 16

suggests visual impairments eg. squints are not detected early enough in growing children

children should get eye tests to change problems before they are permanent

Question 17

Validity of B&C

Answer 17

Good internal validity

ensured kittens only exposed to H or V stripes was a wide collar
= sure that restricted visual enviro did affect kittens visual deficits

Concurrent
behavioural & neurophysiological evidence both gave evidence that kittens raised with H stripes couldn’t see vertically oriented objects & vice versa.

Question 18

Ethics of B&C

Answer 18

Animal ethics

ETHICAL ISSUES
caging & stress = experimenters should have minimised suffering for living animals. should have been put in a larger cage not cylinder

Low importance of research, low likelihood of benefit, high animal suffering, so shouldn’t have taken place (Bateson’s cube)

REDUCED ETHICAL ISSUES
Kittens didn’t seem upset by the monotony of surroundings - minimised stress

Small sample was used - 11 kittens, only 2 aestheniesd

Question 19

B&C relate to key theme

Answer 19

brain plasticity - brains ability to change + adapt as a result of experience

links as there were changes in the neurons in the visual cortex of the kittens after being raised in a restricted visual enviro - either V or H lines

Question 20

B&C relate to biological area

Answer 20

= looked at brain structure, which is a biological factor. focused on brain plasticity in cats

= found cats brains, specifically neurons in visual cortex changed in response to their visual enviro (H or V lines)