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His perceptive and innovative experimentation, particularly with visual impairment, opened entirely new pathways and vistas in the quest to understand the relationship between behavior and physiology. Vet with all his formidable presence in the field, he remained always, as colleague after colleague attests, the quintessence of what it means to be a scholar and a gentleman. Riesen, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California-Riverside, died of pneumonia September 15, , at his home in Riverside, California.

He was 83, born July 1, , in Newton, Kansas. Riesen was honored as a University of California Outstanding Emeritus Faculty Member in and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in see March Ob server in recognition of the monumental impact of his research into how early visual experience, or the lack of it, affects vision, visually guided actions and learning, and brain anatomy and function.

He is recognized as having virtually created the paradigm of sensory deprivation which led to profound discoveries about the relationship between early experience and later development His studies generated research worldwide on topics such as deprivation versus enrichment of the early environment, critical periods of sensory and behavioral development, and effects of early experience on the central nervous system, for example.

His approach was both comparative and developmental—studying and comparing the sensory capacities and sensory development within a wide range of animal species, including chimpanzees, monkeys, cats, rabbits, rats, chickens, and others.

He became fascinated in the late 1 s by reports that humans whose vision was incapacitated from birth by cataracts had great difficulty recognizing and interacting with forms such as circles, squares, and triangles when removal of the cataracts enabled them to see. Riesen investigated the phenomena by devising experiments with animals to determine the effects of sight deprivation.

Using newborn chimpanzees at first- since the species is in many respects similar to humans- Riesen raised them in full darkness, using bandages or otherwise keeping them in the dark. After about two years, the animals were tested in light conditions and were found to be visually blind though not organically blind. In essence, they could see but could not comprehend. As with humans whose cataracts were removed, Riesen found the animals to be visually naive, unable to interact normally in recognizing or interacting with forms or patterns, as when objects are approaching or receding.

When a hand approached the eye, for instance, they did not blink. The brain had not wired-in the need for such reaction. His research and that of his colleagues and students proved that many motor and mental functions are not innate but are developed through environmental, especially visual, experience.

The brain requires visual experience to organize patterns and forms. Conversely, sight deprivation in older animals, after they had experienced normal vision early in life, id not have deleterious effects.

Once the brain had enough early experience, it was not impaired by later deprivation in contrast to deprivation at birth or early thereafter. He found that the experience needed for the brain to organize discrimination had to occur very early in life. And, to sort out exactly what aspect of the deprivation was producing what kind of adverse developmental outcome, Riesen refined the paradigm in various ways, such as raising animals with a diffuse, unstructured light, so the retina would be illuminated but with varying degrees of pattern stimulation.

With each variation the pattern of deficits was found to be different. Riesen further discovered that even if animals had patterned light experience, but were kept immobile and tightly confined as opposed to freely running around in a large area, they would have motor and coordination deficits when released from confinement.

In experiments with animals moving in the light, he established that the brain must learn to interact with small and large images, yielding perception of distance and perspective. Such skill has to be organized in the brain through experience with patterns, such as approaching, receding, oblique movement, and changing attitude.

It is not simply patterned light per se that is critical, but the interchange with the pattern as the organism moves about.

In later years, Riesen began to investigate organic aspects of the brain, using the Golgi stain method, which silhouettes whole neurons in the visual cortex. He found that in visually deprived animals the branches in the silhouette were less expansive, like a bush deprived of nutrients, suggesting a relationship between experience and development of the brain. He then extended studies to the somatic sensory system, analyzing animals deprived of extensive motor activity but not of vision.

He discovered that neuron processes-proliferation and complexity of dendritic fingers that receive information from other neurons—were significantly less expansive in monkeys raised in confined spaces compared to animals that had moved about freely during development. This suggests that neuronal development in the brain of a child raised in a sensorially impoverished environment deprived, for instance, of toys and enriching experiences will not be as mature or complex as in a child with rich experiences.

The work reveals how critical experience in early childhood is to the development of every individual. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in , continuing his research there until Serving as chair of the Department of Psychology from to , he served at UCR until his retirement in It was in that he authored and edited the landmark book, The De ve l opmental Neuropsychology of Sensory Depriva tion Academic Press.

He was editor of the journal Advances in P syc hobiology from to They were married 57 years. Canopy by Hilton Austin Downtown is a perfect match for the traveler seeking a stylish balance of leisure and luxury.

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