THE EFFECTS OF EARLY EYELID OPENING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERSENSORY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE RAT (VISUAL CLIFF, HOMING).
Item
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Title
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THE EFFECTS OF EARLY EYELID OPENING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERSENSORY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE RAT (VISUAL CLIFF, HOMING).
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Identifier
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AAI8423075
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identifier
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8423075
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Creator
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KENNY, PATRICIA A.
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Contributor
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Gerald Turkewitz
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Psychobiology
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Abstract
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This investigation examined a theory of sensory and perceptual development which suggests that limitations on sensory functioning at early stages of development are beneficial to the organism, and that their removal would hinder development. The effects of removing limitations on visual functioning were examined in the altricial rat pup by surgically opening eyelids on Day 7 (normally sealed for approximately two weeks after birth), and comparing experimental and control groups in three experiments. First, the development of home orientation was examined in pups between Days 6 and 20. Control homing was similar to that previously reported: a quadratic trend, showing a gradual increase, peaking at Day 14, followed by a decline. The experimental pattern was a linear increase in homing, peaking on Day 20. A second homing study examined the importance of visual cues in the observed linear increase in experimental homing by reducing visual cues and maintaining the home's olfactory salience. Under these conditions, homing patterns of experimental and control groups did not differ, both quadratic trends, suggesting that the linear increase in experimental homing in Study I was due to the visual salience of the nest. In Part II, a visual cliff was used to examine the ontogenetic course of attention to visual vs. tactile cues in normal and early eyelid-opened pups between Days 12 and 30. Control animals preferred the shallow side only on Day 16; experimental animals preferred the deep side on Day 14, and by Day 20, preferred the shallow side. These results suggested that visual cliff performance in young animals might be more parsimoniously interpreted as differential responding to the quantitative or intensity differences in the stimulation produced by the two sides, rather than the appearance and disappearance of depth avoidance. In Part III, pups whose eyelids had been opened early were tested as adults on operant discrimination tasks requiring attention to auditory and visual cues simultaneously. All animals learned the tasks to criterion, and experimental and control animals did not differ in rate of acquisition or final performance. It was suggested that the tasks may have been too easy and that more difficult tasks might differentiate the two groups as adults.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
