Learning deficits in lab-reared cats

Data obtained by the author and his colleagues on deficits in learning in cats reared in the lab breeding colony are reviewed. As compared with cats who lived free in a farm during the first 3-4 months of life, the lab-reared cats showed a dramatic impairment of delayed response learning to visual and auditory stimuli. They also showed some impairment of visual discrimination learning: they commited more errors than farm-reared cats when a discrimination apparatus had a partition between the stimuli, their reaction times were longer, and after lesions of the superior colliculus-pretectum complex their relearning was impaired. Thus, even moderate impoverishment of environment can considerably affect later learning ability.