Deficits in visual learning by cats with lesions of the visual cortex

Cats were trained for food reward in a divided straight maze or in a V-maze on a light-dark discrimination and on a series of horizontal-vertical stripe discriminations. Errors were scored by both door-push and alley-entrance criteria. After lesions of the visual cortex, cats could relearn or initially learn the light-dark discrimination but were not successfully trained to shift from brightness to pattern cues when learning the series of horizontal-vertical stripe discriminations, using a modified method of limits procedure. Both unoperated cats and cats with lesions of the visual cortex committed alley-entrance errors when learning the light-dark discrimination.