Blakemore + Cooper study
- Created by: oliviahanmore
- Created on: 07-06-18 12:18
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- Blakemore & Cooper
- Background
- Biological Approach
- Hirsch + spinelli worked at Stamford Uni and were interested in neaurons in the visual cortex of the brain
- they wanted to build upon this research by usinf multiple cats seeing either verticle or horizontal stripes in each eye
- It was a lab experiment
- it was in a contained space
- independent measures design
- Aims
- compare behavioural consequencs of raising kittens seeing only horizontal or vertical lines
- Investigate the neuropsychological effect on neurons in kittens visual cortex (brain plasicity)
- SAMPLE = opportunity - cats from birth
- Procedure
- for the first two weeks the cats were kept in complete darkness
- from 2 weeks to 5 months the cats were ina cylinder with either veritcal ot horizontal lines for 5 hours a day
- they wore a black collar to block any view of their body
- After 5 months the kittens were in a normal well lit room with tables and chairs with lines on
- their behaviour was then observed
- CONTROLS = exposing each cat to the verticle/horizontal lines for the same amount of time
- Behavioural results
- Initial reactions
- navigate around by touch
- Frightened when at edge of a surface (no visual placing)
- no startle reflexes
- Showed behavioural blindness - raised vertile cant seee horizontal
- When rod waved in front - cats would act out and play only when held in the same way they could see
- After 10 hours of exposure to well lit surroudnings
- most deficits had disappeared
- showed startled responses
- visual placing
- jump with ease from chair
- some deficits were permanant
- followed moving objects with clumsy jerky headd
- tried to touch things on other sides of the room - poor spacial awarness
- Initial reactions
- Neurophysiological results
- no evidence of severe astigmatism
- Kittens showed strong neural activity when shown matching images to their environment but showed little activity when presented with the images opposite to their environment
- Physical blindness
- Aristotempy (property of being directionally dependent)
- Conclusions
- type of data for the behavioural findinf was qualitative as it was filmed
- type of data for the neurophysiological data was quantitative
- difference between kittens suggests that neurons can change their preffered orientation according to the stimulation they recieve
- matching the ability o the brain to respond to the features in its visual input
- Ethics
- defended
- easier to control than human participants
- less likely to change their behaviour and show demand characteristics
- can be used if it would be unethical to carry the study out using humans
- critisised
- eyesight is damaged as it never went back to normal
- more beneficial to humans
- No ethnocentrism
- defended
- Reliability
- internal reliability
- Yes - simple procedures clearly described - very standardised
- external reliability
- yes - could show consistant resulty
- No - different types of cats - diff brains
- internal reliability
- Validity
- construct
- high level of control - few exrtaneous variables certain conditions caused findings
- concurrent
- behavioual + neirophysiological findings
- ecological
- normal for them not for all cats
- population
- no - cant generalise not enough cats
- construct
- Background
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