Postnatal Development of Vision in a Subhuman Primate (Macaca Mulatta)

Abstract

Introduction In recent years, many theories and a vast amount of empirical data concerning vision have come from various scientific disciplines ranging from electron microscopy, photochemistry, physiology, and ophthalmology to experimental psychology. However, this vast amount of information on vision has been obtained almost exclusively from research on adult subjects. The experimental literature on the postnatal structural and functional development of the visual system in newborn primates is still very fragmentary even though it is generally accepted that high visual acuity must play a basic role in the development of visually-guided behavior of man and the diurnal subhuman primates. Since a number of visual reflexes can be elicited by light at birth or shortly after in newborn primate infants, it is commonly accepted that gross visual sensitivity to light is present at birth. However, in view of the methodologic difficulties in testing neonatal infants and the consequent lack of experimental