著者

鳥居 修晃

出版者

日本基礎心理学会

雑誌

基礎心理学研究

巻号頁・発行日

vol.24, no.1, pp.25-38, 2005

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The present lecture article aims to clarify both historically and theoretically important significance of Kuroda's pioneering work. In 1930, he published an article concerning the post-operative vision in a case of the congenitally blind. The case of YT was a lady who had been blind due to congenital cataract of both eyes and received the operation (extraction of cataract) at the age of 42. According to her own verbal reports and the ophthalmic surgeon's reports, YT seemed to have an ability to see brightness and colors prior to the operation. Kuroda had an opportunity to see her three times (1st: 40 days; 2nd 45 days; and 3rd: almost three and a half months after the operation, respectively). Among others the following results obtained through some experiments as to YT's post-operative ability to perceive visual stimuli of various kinds are entered into details: (a) the extent of Muller-Lyer's illusion as measured for her was similar to that of the normally sighted children (aged 7-12 years); (b) to see in depth the perspective geometrical figures such as the Necker cube was extremely difficult; and (c) when presented with stimuli such as pictures of familiar movie actresses of those days, it was mostly difficult for her to interpret each facial expression. These results are discussed here by comparison with those of the previous as well as more recent studies. Furthermore, Kuroda published two books full of suggestions in 1933 and 1938, respectively. In the latter he expressed a new and original idea concerning the even now unresolved issue of visual identification of objects. Its applicability to give an explanation for some findings on the post-operative progress in identifying objects (cf. Torii & Mochizuki, 2000) is briefly discussed.