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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1978 Jul;30(1):97–106. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1978.30-97

The control of responding by auditory stimuli: interactions between different dimensions of the stimuli.

M Segal, J M Harrison
PMCID: PMC1332736  PMID: 98609

Abstract

Sounds have position in addition to other dimensions, such as intensity and frequency. Position rapidly gains control of spatially contiguous responses and this may interfere with control of responding by other acoustic dimensions. These experiments investigated interference of a tone-noise discrimination by the discrimination of acoustic position. Squirrel monkeys were studied when responding was differentially reinforced in the presence of both spectral content (tone-noise) and positional differences between the stimuli, and when responding was differentially reinforced only in the presence of spectral differences. Under the first condition, responding rapidly came under the control of the position of the noise in the two monkeys tested. The position of the tone controlled responding in one monkey; in the second monkey, responding came under the control of the spectral content of the tone. Under the second condition, responding was initially under the control of the noise in all three monkeys tested. This persisted for the duration of the condition for two of the monkeys; in one monkey, responding came under the control of the spectral content of the noise. Under the second condition, responding was also initially under the control of the position of the tone for all monkeys, but control by spectral content of the tone relatively rapidly developed in two of three monkeys.

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Selected References

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

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