Crabtree J W, Riesen A H
Dev Psychobiol. 1979 Jul;12(4):291-303. doi: 10.1002/dev.420120404.
Forty-eight kittens were dark reared or light reared from birth for 1 to 8 months and formed 6 age groups. Following rearing the kittens were examined daily in several tasks of visually guided behavior. Compared to younger dark-reared groups of kittens, older deprived groups showed longer acquisition times for visual placing to a surface, visual tracking, visually guided reaching to a serrated edge and moving object, and visually guided locomotion on elevated platforms. After dark rearing durations of 3 months or longer, deprived groups displayed overall deficiencies in obstacle avoidance during their 1st postdeprivation month. The older dark-reared groups gave some indication of a direct relationship between duration of dark rearing and both delay in acquisition times for the visually guided behaviors and deficiency in obstacle avoidance. One interpretation of the results is that during dark rearing the kitten may acquire nonvisual behaviors which could interfere with and prolong its development of visually guided behavior subsequent to deprivation.
48只小猫从出生起在黑暗或明亮环境中饲养1至8个月，形成6个年龄组。饲养结束后，每天对小猫进行几项视觉引导行为任务的检查。与较年幼的黑暗饲养小猫组相比，年龄较大的剥夺组在视觉定位到表面、视觉追踪、视觉引导伸向锯齿边缘和移动物体以及在高架平台上的视觉引导运动等任务中，习得时间更长。在黑暗饲养3个月或更长时间后，剥夺组在剥夺后的第一个月表现出整体避障缺陷。年龄较大的黑暗饲养组显示出黑暗饲养持续时间与视觉引导行为习得时间延迟和避障缺陷之间存在某种直接关系。对结果的一种解释是，在黑暗饲养期间，小猫可能获得了非视觉行为，这些行为可能会干扰并延长其在剥夺后视觉引导行为的发展。
