Final answer:
The feature detectors in a cat's visual cortex are highly influenced by visual experiences, particularly during a critical developmental period.
Step-by-step explanation:
To What Extent Are Feature Detectors in a Cat's Visual Cortex Altered by Visual Experience?
The feature detectors within a cat's visual cortex are significantly altered by visual experience, especially during the early stages of development. Research conducted by David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1981, has shown that during a critical period of development, the closing of one eye in newborn kittens leads to a repurposing of the cortical areas that would normally receive input from that eye. Through their work, they discovered that specific brain cells respond to directional lines and that these cells are arranged in precise patterns in the visual cortex. This understanding was furthered by experiments with primates, including humans, using prism glasses to invert the visual field; subjects were able to adapt to this change over time, indicating that the visual cortex is flexible and can reorganize based on visual experiences.
The impact of visual experience on the visual cortex begins with the pathway from the retina through the thalamus, arriving at the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe. Here, aspect detection and binocular depth cues are processed, laying the groundwork for complex image recognition. If this pathway is disrupted during a critical period, as was observed in the kitten studies, the neural plasticity of the brain allows for reorganization to compensate for the deprived input, indicating the extent to which visual experience can shape and modify the function of the visual cortex's feature detectors.