Case Study 4- Kitten Carousel

Question 1

By who was this study down by?

In what year?

Answer 1

Hein and held

In 1963

Question 2

Context:

What was the background? [4]

Answer 2

1. There is a long debate between Natura Vs Nurture. And it still goes on.
2. Is visual perception learnt of inherited?
3. Many studies believe that for humans and animals to develop their own perception, they need to look at the role of stimuli and the movement around stimuli to develop their own perception.
4. It is also believed that ONE sense is not enough to develop perceptual skills.

Question 3

Aim:

What was the aim?

Answer 3

To investigate whether kittens had to see and move to develop skills. Hence depth perception.

Question 4

Method:
What was the IV?

What was the DV ?

Answer 4

Each kitten had a distinctive role, leading to the IV.

1. Self directed movement.
   Two levels-
   active( allowed to walk around)
   passive. ( where kitten was placed in a device and could not walk around).
2. Visual stimulation.
   From these two levels, pairs were created and these pairs were called X and Y

DV- the the development of guided behavior.

Question 5

Method-tests

What were the main three tests?

Answer 5

1. Visually guided paw placement
2. Avoidance of visual cliff
3. Blinking to an approaching object.

Question 6

Procedure of

‘Visually guided paw placement.’

Answer 6

1. Each kitten was held in a researchers hand by the body. Head and body where free to move.
2. Kitten was slowly brought forward and down towards the edge of table.
3. Expected reaction was: KITTEN WOULD EXTEND PAWS TO TOUCH SURFACE.

Question 7

Procedure of ‘Avoidance of visual cliff’

Answer 7

1. Apparatus had DEEP side with a pattern and SHALLOW side with a pattern underneath.
2. All this under glass
3. Expected result: kitten would walk on shallow side and avoid deep side.

Question 8

Procedure of ‘blinking to an approaching object’

Answer 8

1. All kittens were put in a device that was the same as the active kitten.
2. A large sheet of plexiglass was placed between them.
3. Hand would move QUICKLY towards kitten stopping Just before the glass.
4. Kitten was expected to blink

Question 9

What were the three additional tests.

Answer 9

1. Pupillary reflex
2. Tactual placing response

3 visual pursuit of a moving object.

Question 10

Procedure of ‘pupillary reflex to light’

Answer 10

If light was shown into the eye of kitten, the pupil should shrink

Question 11

Procedure of ‘tactual placing response ‘

Answer 11

1. Like paw placement test

2. Kitten would want to touch horizontal surface rather than vertical

Question 12

Procedure of ‘pursuit of a moving object’

Answer 12

-if experimenters hand was moved about in front of kitten face, they should follow this movement with their head and eyes.

Question 13

Participants
How many participants were there?

Where did they come from ?

Ages?

Where they broken down?

Answer 13

10 pairs of kittens, hence in total 20 kittens.

Each pair came from a different litter

All aged between 8-12 weeks old.

Yes, into two groups. X ( 8 pairs) and Y (2 pairs)

Question 14

Procedure
At the beginning of kittens life, who were they brought up?

Begin with X group. [2]

Y group [3]

Answer 14

X group was reared in darkness until 8-12 weeks old. Were placed in carousel for 3 hours a day.

Y group:

• had 3 hours of exposure to the pattern of carousel since 2-8 weeks old
• Than had 3 hours a day in the carousel
• kept in dark cages with no light, yet they were with their mother and litter.

Question 15

Procedure
What did kittens have to do everyday?

What was done after?

Answer 15

6 assessments every day of paw placement test.

Once they showed ability to paw place, they were tested with VISUAL CLIFF.

Question 16

Procedure

During these test, what did researchers do to group X

Answer 16

• kittens were being placed in continuous lit room for 48 hours.
• Each pair was tested again to see how they reacted.

Question 17

Procedure

What happened to Group Y

Answer 17

With ACTIVE kittens, they showed paw placement skills, it was tested with visual cliff. And then retested next day.

Passive kittens- did not get lit room, it just carried on with carousel as before, until a total length of 126 hours.
And than did paw placement and visual cliff test

Question 18

Results
What was proved when tested on visual cliff ?

WHAT happened after 48 hours?

Answer 18

• All active kittens (X and Y) showed normal behavior
• passive kittens did not.

After 48 hours, in normal living of light, all kittens were retested and passed showing no secondary effects of experiment.

Question 19

Conclusion

Answer 19

In order to develop ‘typical perceptual development, kittens need to be able to move around themselves with simultaneous Vidal feed back.

Question 20

Evaluation:

Strengths.

Answer 20

High control as it is a laboratory experiment, hence can be repeated for reliability.
E.g. Amount of time kittens were exposed to carousel light and task.

With these high controls, researchers can be more confident that IV is directly affecting DV

Question 21

Evaluation:

Weaknesses

Answer 21

Lack of ecological validity- artificial environment.
E.g group X spent time in darkness and both in a carousel, this is not their usual conditions

Mudane realism. These laboratory experiments make kittens do tasks that are not real.
E.g. All fala kittens had to do were not normal.