Sensitive and critical periods for visual calibration of sound localization by barn owls

This study describes developmental changes in the capacity of owls to adjust sound localization in response to chronic prismatic displacement of the visual field and to recover accurate sound localization following the restoration of normal vision. Matched, binocular displacing prisms were mounted over the eyes of 19 barn owls (Tyto alba) beginning at ages ranging from 10 to 272 d. In nearly all cases, the visual field was shifted 23 degrees to the right. Sound localization was assessed on the basis of head orientations to sound sources, measured in a darkened sound chamber with a search coil system. Chronic exposure to a displaced visual field caused the owls to alter sound localization in the direction of the visual field displacement, thereby inducing a sound-localization error. The size of the sound-localization error that resulted depended on the age of the animal when prism experience began. Maximal errors of about 20 degrees were induced only when prism experience began by 21 d of age. As prism experience began at later ages, the magnitude of induced errors decreased. A bird that wore prisms beginning at 102 d of age, altered sound localization by only 6 degrees. An adult owl, when exposed chronically to a displaced visual field, altered sound localization by about 3 degrees. We refer to the early period in life when displaced vision induces exceptionally large sound-localization errors (relative to those induced in the adult) as a sensitive period. The capacity to recover accurate sound localization following restoration of normal vision was tested in 7 owls that had been raised wearing prisms. Four owls that had prisms removed by 182 d of age recovered accurate localization rapidly (over a period of weeks), whereas 3 owls that were older when the prisms were removed did not recover accurate localization when tested for up to 7 months after prism removal. Adjustment of sound localization slowed greatly or ceased at about 200 days of age, referred to here as the critical period for visual calibration of sound localization. Three owls were subjected repetitively to displacement of the visual field. An owl that adjusted sound localization to the left of normal during the sensitive period retained the capacity to adjust again to the left, but not to the right of normal, later in the critical period. The converse was true for an owl that adjusted sound localization to the right of normal during the sensitive period.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)