Biological - Blakemore and Cooper

Question 1

What was the background of the study?

Answer 1

Hirsch and Spinelli worked at Stanford University. They were interested in neurones in the visual cortex of the brain - they found they could change the way the neurones in the visual cortex aligns themselves by controlling what kittens could see as they grew up.

Question 2

What is brain plasticity?

Answer 2

Your brain adapts and changed according to what you do in your life

Question 3

What is the aim?

Answer 3

To investigate how being raised in a visually restrictive environment would affect the visual brain development of cats - compare the behavioural consequences of raising kittens seeing only horizontal or vertical stripes and investigate the neurophysiological effect on neurones in kittens’ visual cortex (brain plasticity)

Question 4

What was the research methods and why?

Answer 4

Lab experiment because it was in a controlled environment

Question 5

What was the experimental design?

Answer 5

Independent measures

Question 6

What was the sample?

Answer 6

Kittens from birth to approximately 1 years old

Question 7

What was the environment for the first two weeks of the cats’ lives?

Answer 7

Complete darkness

Question 8

What was the environment from two weeks old until five months?

Answer 8

Places inside cylinder either horizontal stripes or vertical stripes for 5 hours a day - kittens wore a large black collar so they couldn’t see their own bodies

Question 9

What happened to the kittens when they were 5 months old?

Answer 9

They were put in a well lit room with furniture (including tables and chairs) - behaviour was observed here

Question 10

What was the IV in this study?

Answer 10

The direction of stripes (either vertical or horizontal) in the cylinder

Question 11

What were the controls?

Answer 11

The timing process, the conditions they were kept in, time spent in darkness, cycling size, black collar, cat age, well-lit room, time in cylinder

Question 12

What were the behaviour results initial reactions?

Answer 12

Initially cats showed visual deficits when first released into a normal room, they would navigate their way around using touch, although they had normal pupillary reflexes, the majority of these deficits disappeared after 10 hours within the room and no startle reflex

Question 13

What were the behaviour results after 10 hours of exposure to a well-lit room?

Answer 13

Visual placing came back, startle reflects came back, still very clumsy

Question 14

How did the horizontally and vertically raised cats differ?

Answer 14

2 cats were presented with a perspex sheet of black and white lines either horizontally or vertically and would only startle if in the same orientation as earlier exposed to - the same cats were tested when a rod was shaken in front of them. Similarly, they only responded by chasing the rods if is was the correct orientation - this was permanent

Question 15

How did neurones align themselves?

Answer 15

Neurones aligned themselves based on visual conditions upbringing eg vertical cylinder had lots of vertical neurones

Question 16

What was the type of data collected for the behavioural findings?

Answer 16

Qualitative

Question 17

What was the type of data collected for the neurophysiological findings?

Answer 17

Quantitative

Question 18

What were the conclusions?

Answer 18

The difference between the kittens suggests that neurones can change their preferred orientation according to the stimulation they receive, matching the ability of the brain to respond to the features in its visual input - the study lends evidence to the nature side of the debate

Question 19

In what ways can B&C be defended in relation to ethics?

Answer 19

Only 2 cats were used (1 horizontal and 1 vertical) so this can be seen as reducing the harm to the animals by using the minimum number required - attempts to refine procedure by only putting them in the cylinder for a certain number of hours a day etc.

Question 20

In what ways can B&C be criticised in relation to ethics?

Answer 20

Is this research? Humans grow up in a visually enriched environment and therefore these is no real use for this research for humans (or even other animals)

Question 21

Internal reliability points

Answer 21

procedure very standardised and controlled (eg first 2 weeks in darkness, 5/24 hours a day in the cylinder, tests conducted)

Question 22

External reliability points

Answer 22

Only 2 kittens were used so cannot establish a consistent effect HOWEVER biology is universal so perhaps a larger sample wasn’t needed

Question 23

Internal (construct) validity points

Answer 23

Seemed to be a good test of brain plasticity as the only difference in the procedure for the kittens was the direction of the stripes. Multiple tests confirm the deficits

Question 24

Internal (concurrent) validity points

Answer 24

Predictions can be made about the behaviour of the kittens as a result of the tests identifying their deficits

Question 25

External (ecological) validity points

Answer 25

Not a realistic scenario due to the rich visual environment animals and human grow up in usually

Question 26

External (population) validity points

Answer 26

Can we generalise from kittens to humans? Essentially brain plasticity should be the same in all animals

Question 27

Ethnocentrism points

Answer 27

Does this really matter with animals? Especially due to the environment is which they were raised not being relevant to any relevant cultures

Question 28

How does this link to the nat/nur debate?

Answer 28

Nurture as brains can change in response to the visual environment

Question 29

How does this link to the psychology as a science debate?

Answer 29

Replicable, objective and falsifiable as very controlled, used quantitative measures and can be replicated to see if it is false

Question 30

How does this link to the ind/sit debate?

Answer 30

Behaviour dependent on situation of cylinder orientation

Question 31

How does this link to usefulness?

Answer 31

Not really useful at all