P. B. Dews coauthored a 1970 experiment measuring how early visual experience affects later visually guided behavior. Kittens had one eye closed for different ages and durations; after they were at least a year old, behavioral tests compared the previously deprived eye with the normally exposed eye. The tasks distinguished visual acuity, guidance of paw placement and discrimination of patterns.[ref]
The age and duration of monocular deprivation mattered. Longer early deprivation produced more severe impairments, while deprivation beginning at four months or later caused no detectable lasting effect in these tests. This is evidence for age-dependent neuroplasticity under the specified experimental conditions, rather than a universal timetable for every form of learning.
An especially revealing comparison concerned recovery: closing the normally exposed eye improved some behavioral use of the deprived eye, without a corresponding increase in its ability to drive recorded visual cortex cells. Behavioral performance and one physiological readout therefore did not change in lockstep. The experiment shows why measurements at different levels of organization should be related through evidence rather than assumed equivalent.[ref]
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