Browsing by Author "Sleigh, Merry J."
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- The effects of augmented prenatal visual stimulation on postnatal perceptual responsiveness in Bobwhite quailSleigh, Merry J. (Virginia Tech, 1994)The present study examined whether previously reported effects of altered prenatal sensory experience on the subsequent acceleration of intersensory functions are mediated by mechanisms sensitive to the overall amount of stimulation. Results reveal that chicks exposed to augmented amounts of prenatal visual stimulation show interference in subsequent species-typical perceptual development. Specifically, chicks continued to respond to maternal auditory cues into later stages of postnatal development and failed to respond to maternal visual cues at the age when normally reared chicks to exhibit this species-specific ability. Embryos in this study also failed to demonstrate early auditory learning of an individual maternal call, a behavior reliably seen in unmanipulated embryos. These findings suggest that substantially increased amounts of visual stimulation appear to prevent the emergence of species-typical patterns of intersensory functioning and lend support to the notion that stimulation that falls within some optimal range seems to maintain or facilitate normal patterns of perceptual functioning, while stimulation beyond the range of the species norm appears to result in intersensory interference.
- Type and amount of prenatal auditory experience alters postnatal perceptual responsiveness in bobwhite quailSleigh, Merry J. (Virginia Tech, 1996)Bobwhite quail embryos were exposed to 5 or 10 min/hr of either bobwhite chick contentment calls or bobwhite chick distress calls. Results revealed that embryos exposed to 5 or 10 min/hr of distress calls continued to respond to maternal auditory cues into later stages of postnatal development in comparison to controls (Experiments 1A & 2A) and failed to demonstrate species-typical responsiveness to maternal visual cues (Experiments 1B & 2B). In contrast, embryos exposed to 5 min/hr of contentment calls continued to respond to maternal auditory cues into later stages of development (Experiment 2A) and exhibited species-typical patterns of visual responsiveness (Experiment 2B). Embryos exposed to 10 min/hr of contentment calls responded to maternal auditory cues into later stages of postnatal development (Experiment 1A), but showed an accelerated responsiveness to maternal visual cues (Experiment 1B). Behavioral activity measures revealed that augmented auditory stimulation (whether contentment or distress vocalizations) appeared to foster an increase in physical responsiveness when compared to controls (Experiment 3). Taken together, these results suggest that the type and amount of sensory stimulation interact during the prenatal period to influence the course of perceptual development.