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Depth Perception in Monocularly Deprived Cats Following Part‐time Reverse Occlusion
Author(s) -
Mitchell Donald E.,
Ptito Maurice,
Lepore Franco
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-9568.1994.tb00591.x
Subject(s) - monocular , depth perception , occlusion , monocular deprivation , stereopsis , sensory deprivation , visual acuity , cats , perception , ocular dominance , psychology , binocular vision , optometry , medicine , ophthalmology , computer vision , neuroscience , computer science , surgery , visual cortex , sensory system
The behavioural effects of an early period of monocular deprivation can be extremely profound. However, it is possible to achieve a high degree of recovery, even to normal levels of visual acuity, by prompt imposition of certain regimes of part‐time reverse occlusion where the initially non‐deprived eye is occluded for only part of each day in order to allow a daily period of binocular visual exposure. In this paper we report on the depth perception of five monocularly deprived cats that had recovered normal visual acuity in both eyes following imposition of certain of the above occlusion regimes. Although three of the animals exhibited five‐to sevenfold superiority of binocular over monocular depth thresholds, subsequent tests made on two of the animals revealed that they were unable to make stereoscopic discriminations with random‐dot stereograms. Despite the recovery of normal visual acuity in both eyes, we conclude that these animals recover at best only local stereopsis.