Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1990 Jul;54(1):45–51. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1990.54-45

Simultaneous auditory discrimination.

J M Harrison 1
PMCID: PMC1322945  PMID: 2398325

Abstract

Stimuli in many visual stimulus control studies typically are presented simultaneously; in contrast the stimuli in auditory discrimination studies are presented successively. Many everyday auditory stimuli that control responding occur simultaneously. This suggests that simultaneous auditory discriminations should be readily acquired. The purpose of the present experiment was to train rats in a simultaneous auditory discrimination. The apparatus consisted of a cage with two response levers mounted on one wall and a speaker mounted adjacent to each lever. A feeder was mounted on the opposite wall. In a go-right/go-left procedure, two stimuli were presented on each trial, a wide-band noise burst through one speaker and a 2-kHz complex signal through the other. The stimuli alternated randomly from side to side across trials, and the stimulus correlated with reinforcement for presses varied across subjects. The rats acquired the discrimination in 400 to 700 trials, and no response position preference developed during acquisition. The ease with which the simultaneous discrimination was acquired suggests that procedures, such as matching to sample, that require simultaneous presentation of stimuli can be used with auditory stimuli in animals having poor vision.

Full text

PDF
45

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. DEWSON J. H., 3rd SPEECH SOUND DISCRIMINATION BY CATS. Science. 1964 May 1;144(3618):555–556. doi: 10.1126/science.144.3618.555. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Harrison J. M., Beecher M. D. Control of responding by the location of an auditory stimulus: role of rise time of the stimulus. J Exp Anal Behav. 1969 Mar;12(2):217–227. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1969.12-217. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Harrison J. M., Briggs R. M. Orientation and lever responding in auditory discriminations in squirrel monkeys. J Exp Anal Behav. 1977 Nov;28(3):233–241. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1977.28-233. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Harrison J. M. Control of responding by sounds of different quality: an evolutionary analysis. J Exp Anal Behav. 1988 Nov;50(3):521–539. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1988.50-521. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Harrison J. M. Effects of age on some behavioral characteristics of novel auditory stimuli in the rat. Exp Aging Res. 1983 Spring;9(1):35–39. doi: 10.1080/03610738308258418. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Heffner R. S., Heffner H. E. Hearing in the elephant (Elephas maximus): absolute sensitivity, frequency discrimination, and sound localization. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 1982 Dec;96(6):926–944. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Herman L. M., Arbeit W. R. Stimulus control and auditory discrimination learning sets in the bottlenose dolphin. J Exp Anal Behav. 1973 May;19(3):379–394. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1973.19-379. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Herman L. M., Gordon J. A. Auditory delayed matching in the bottlenose dolphin. J Exp Anal Behav. 1974 Jan;21(1):19–26. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1974.21-19. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Iwai E., Yaginuma S., Mishkin M. Acquisition of discrimination learning of patterns identical in configuration in macaques (Macaca mulatta and M. fuscata). J Comp Psychol. 1986 Mar;100(1):30–36. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Lawicka W. Differing effectiveness of auditory quality and location cues in two forms of differentiation learning. Acta Biol Exp (Warsz) 1969;29(1):83–92. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Lawicka W., Mishkin M., Rosvold H. E. Dissociation of deficits on auditory tasks following partial prefrontal lesions in monkeys. Acta Neurobiol Exp (Wars) 1975;35(5-6):581–607. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. May B., Moody D. B., Stebbins W. C. Categorical perception of conspecific communication sounds by Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata. J Acoust Soc Am. 1989 Feb;85(2):837–847. doi: 10.1121/1.397555. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Neill J. C., Harrison J. M. Auditory discrimination: the Konorski quality-location effect. J Exp Anal Behav. 1987 Jul;48(1):81–95. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1987.48-81. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Raslear T. G. Discriminability, loudness, and masking in the rat (Rattus norvegicus): a confirmation and extension. J Comp Psychol. 1989 Sep;103(3):289–296. doi: 10.1037/0735-7036.103.3.289. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Segal M., Harrison J. M. The control of responding by auditory stimuli: interactions between different dimensions of the stimuli. J Exp Anal Behav. 1978 Jul;30(1):97–106. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1978.30-97. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior are provided here courtesy of Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

RESOURCES