Deprivation of visual form definition in the ring dove: II. Perceptual-motor transfer.

Abstract

This paper is based on part of a dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Department of Psychology of New York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The author wishes to express gratitude to Dr. T. C. Schneirla for methodological and theoretical aid from the initial planning stages to the final reports of these experiments. Gratitude is also expressed to the Department of Animal Behavior of the American Museum of Natural History for the use of its experimental facilities.-' Now at the Institute for Research in Human Relations, Philadelphia.

Stimulus generalization to hue in the darkreared macaque.

“…There is consistent evidence that if an organism is deprived of exposure to normal stimulus heterogeneity along some continuum, is brought to a high criterional level on a dis-crimination, and is tested for transfer along an independent dimension also involved in the deprivation, then generalization will be steeper. We have evidence for the pigeon (Siegel, 1953), chicken (Tucker, 1955), rat (Forgus, 1954), cat (Riesen, Kurke, & Mellinger, 1953), chimpanzee (Chow &Nissen, 1955), andman (Senden, 1932). Deprivation of form vision was involved in all cases, monocularly in the pigeon, chicken, cat, and chimpanzee studies.…”

A reappraisal of the roles of past experience and innate organizing processes in visual perception.

“…The effects of the deprivation of pattern vision on interocular transfer have been recently investigated in birds (64), cats (54,55), and chimpanzees (9). It has been found that if, in rearing, both eyes have been exposed to patterned light (either simultaneously or alternately), the animal later trained monocularly on a visual discrimination problem transfers immediately to the untrained eye.…”

Simple devices for restricting the visual fields of birds

“…A variety of hoods (Chiu, Lauber, & Kinnear, 1975;Hess, 1956;Rossi, 1968;Siegel, 1953), goggles (Catania, 1963), patches (Cherkin, 1970;Lauber, McGinnis, & Boyd, 1965), and contact lenses (Zeier, 1970) have been used for this purpose. In our experience with young chicks, adult chickens, and ring doves, we have found that the most successful devices for long-term use are those that are lightweight, have no protruding edges, and are securely glued to the skin and feathers.…”