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Visual Experience and the Development of Depth Perception

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Brain Mechanisms and Spatial Vision

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASID,volume 21))

Abstract

In 1873 Douglas Spalding (53) observed that chicks which had been prevented from seeing from the time of hatching until they were three days old, nevertheless were willing to jump down from a raised platform and run directly to their mother within a few minutes of their blindfolds being removed. Similarly, Thorndike (58) reported that four day old chicks, ‘without experience of heights’, became progressively less willing to jump down from a surface whose height was increased. These early observations, and a variety of others on different species (see 66 for a historical review), demonstrated that animals are able to recognise differences in distance from a very young age. Given how important it is for an animal to know where things are as it moves around in space, such a result is not surprising. It is also unsurprising that an animal is able to take advantage of the many different sources of depth information which are available.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2, Canada

    Brian Timney

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  1. Brian Timney
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Rowland Institute for Science, 02142, Cambridge, MA, USA

    David J. Ingle

  2. Laboratoire de Neuropsychologie Expérimentale, INSERM — Unité 94, Bron, France

    Marc Jeannerod

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    David N. Lee

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© 1985 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht

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Timney, B. (1985). Visual Experience and the Development of Depth Perception. In: Ingle, D.J., Jeannerod, M., Lee, D.N. (eds) Brain Mechanisms and Spatial Vision. NATO ASI Series, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5071-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5071-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8743-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-5071-9

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