Depth Discrimination in Rats on Visual Cliffs

Abstract

On an open visual cliff rats significantly preferred the shallow side while on an otherwise comparable closed cliff they did not, suggesting either that depth discrimination is enhanced by the additional information provided by the deep side of the open model, or that animals merely avoided the large open area of the deep side. The latter suggests that side preferences in open model cliffs are not necessarily valid indicators of visual depth discriminability in rats. Texture density was not a sufficient cue for depth discriminability as indicated by the preference of Ss for 1-in. checks in both 3-in. vs 1-in. and 1-in. vs ¼-in. comparison tests.