Passive Kittens Experiment

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The effect of change in visual perception on the placement of the body in space
The connection between the senses, especially between vision and balance or sense of space plays a big role in everyday human life. If the visual perception is changed the body have to be adapted to it. Adaptation is depending on the kind of action we take towards it. This study wants to show how does active participation is influencing on this. In the present experiment goggles will be used to change the visual perception and measuring the placing of arms and hands in space in accordance with the changes. It has been found about it that the change had after effect as well, after the adaptation the change influences the usual vision too. This experiment is intended
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Experiments were done on kittens and chimpanzee where similar findings occurred. Kittens were paired up, one of them became the active, the other the passive. The passive kittens were given the illusion of moving by the visual effect and the changing of placement in the space but the special machine what was operated by the active kitten (Held and Hein, 1963.) Then they were tested on the same task. Their steps and movements were compared and found to be completely different between the two groups. The passive kittens tried to move but their muscles couldn’t do the same as the active ones because their body were not used to it. After sometime of adapting the passive group were the same as the active …show more content…
This is highly associated with the fact that while the active group adapted the body coordination to the change in vision, the passive group in the wheelchair could not do the same. That is why the results of the passive group stayed closer to the second measurement scores like they would not have wear the goggles for the same amount of time as the other group. Like the passive kittens in Held and Hein’s experiment (1963), they only got the visual effect but could not adapt with body to the new situation.IN Howard, Craske and Templeton’s study (1965) it is cited from Held and Hein (1958) that the passive movement did not lead to improvement but the active accelerated it. “Since prisms alter only visual feed? back from arm movements, one might suppose that adaptation affects only the correlation between behavior and vision. However, such terms as "changes in hand-eye coordination" and "changes in visually giiided behavior" prove mis-leading.” (Harris, C. S. (1963). Adaptation to displaced vision: visual, motor, or proprioceptive change? Science (New York, N.Y.), 140(3568),