Development of binocular depth perception in kittens.

By means of the jumping stand technique, binocular and monocular depth thresholds were measured in kittens 4 weeks to 4 months old. Binocularly, performance improved very rapidly during the fifth and sixth weeks, coinciding with the maturation of cortical disparity-tuned neurons. Discriminations made monocularly took longer to learn and thresholds were consistently poor. The results demonstrate that kittens can use binocular cues for depth at a very early age.