Visual discrimination defects in cats with temporal or occipital decortications.

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Abstract
Performance on visual discrimination problems by 7 control (C) cats, 8 cats with lesions in the posterior temporal (PT) cortex and 8 with destruction of the central 3.degree.-20.degree. of the retina projection to the marginal (M) gyrus was investigated as a function of 3 variables: discriminanda (objects and patterns, type of pattern), learning requirement (acquisition, transfer, retention) and stimulus-response contingency (simultaneous, successive, concurrent discrimination). Group PT was impaired on 7/11 initial learning and transfer test and on 0/3 retention tests, with pattern stimuli; it was inferior to Group C on 1/7 object discrimination tasks. No discrimination contingency was more likely than the others to reveal a significant deficit in Group PT. Group M was not impaired relative to Group C on any individual discrimination task. It made significantly more total errors on 7 discriminations between complex patterns (embedded or masked figures) than Group C. On 3 discriminations between simple patterns (unmasked figures), Group M made fewer errors than Group C. This pattern of loss is qualitatively similar to, but milder than, that observed in previous cats with M lesions, probably because the present M lesions were relatively small. M and PT ablations produce differential impairments in cats, a selective difficulty in differentiating complex patterns after M lesions and a nonselective disruption of pattern discrimination learning after PT lesions.

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