Light-dark discrimination and reversal learning in early postnatal kittens.

During the early postnatal period kittens were trained in a visual discrimination task involving light-dark stimuli in order to determine the age of onset of visual control of learned behavior. A Y water maze was used with escape from water as the reinforcer. The results indicate that kittens are able to master the discrimination within the 5th week of life. The relevance of this result to electrophysiological measures of maturation is discussed.