Auditory Discrimination: The Konorski Quality‐location Effect

Abstract

Konorski showed that when a go/no-go procedure was used, sound quality discriminations were rapidly acquired and sound location discriminations were slowly acquired. These findings have been interpreted as a general constraint on the acquisition of auditory discriminations (quality-location effect). However, experiments carried out within an evolutionary framework (Harrison, 1984) have shown that the rate of acquisition of sound location discriminations varies widely as a function of the inclusion or exclusion of naturalistic features. These data suggest that Konorski's findings were a function of the special conditions of the experiments. The first purpose of the present experiments was to assess whether rats showed the effects noted by Konorski when studied under similar conditions. The second purpose was to study the effect of manipulating two natural features (novelty and stimulusresponse adjacency) to assess whether the acquisition rates of quality and location discriminations could be greatly modified or made approximately equal, or both. When a go/no-go procedure was used and the other conditions were similar to those of Konorski, rats acquired a quality discrimination but did not acquire a location discrimination. However, when the S+ or S-were presented through a closely adjacent speaker, the sound location discrimination was acquired as rapidly as the quality discrimination. Finally, preexposing the animal to either S+ or S-retarded the rate of or prevented the acquisition of the quality discrimination. The experiments showed that the quality-location effect was determined primarily by the conditions used in Konorski's experiments, and that the effect is not a general constraint on learning.Key words: auditory discrimination, go/no-go procedure, quality-location effect, constraints on conditioning, Konorski, location discrimination, rats In a classical series of studies on auditory discrimination, Konorski and his colleagues showed that when a go/no-go procedure is used, auditory quality discriminations (e.g., metronome vs. buzzer, 300 Hz vs. 1,500 Hz tones) were more readily acquired than were discriminations of sound source location. When a go-left/go-right procedure was used, however, location discriminations were more readily acquired than were stimulus quality discrim-

A stimulus-location effect in contingency-governed, but not rule-based, discrimination learning.

“…Sheldon, 1967). A second example is the stimulus adjacency effect reported by Beecher and Harrison (1971) and reviewed by Neill and Harrison (1987): a conditional discrimination between locations of an auditory stimulus is acquired much more rapidly when the response required for each sound is near its source, rather than near the source of the alternative sound.…”

Formação de classes funcionais de estímulos musicais

“…Esta função reúne a maior parte dos estudos usando estímulos sonoros na Análise do Comportamento (Beecher & Harrison, 1971;Burlile, Feldman, Craig, & Harrison, 1985;Crites, Harris, Rosenquist, & Thomas, 1967;Downey & Harrison, 1972Farris, 1967;Green, 1975;Harrison & Briggs, 1977;Harrison, Iversen, & Pratt, 1977;Harrison, 1988;Herman & Gordon, 1974;Lewis & Stoyak, 1979;Neill & Harrison, 1987;Neill, Liu, Mikati, & Holmes, 2005;Raslear, 1975;Raslear, Pierrel-Sorrentino, & Brissey, 1975;Reed, Howell, Sackin, Pizzimenti, & Rosen, 2003;Schusterman, Balliet, & Nixon, 1972;Segal & Harrison, 1978;Stebbins, 1966). Em geral, esses estudos assemelham-se: frequentemente utilizaram ratos como sujeitos e sons simples como estímulos (descritos pela frequência em Hertz).…”

Pilocarpine Seizures Cause Age-Dependent Impairment in Auditory Location Discrimination

“…The present experiment tested this general hypothesis in rats using naturalistic auditory procedures and apparatus. Rapid conditioning of sound-source location discrimination occurs when the sound has complex spectral content (Harrison & Beecher, 1969), is novel at the start of training, and its source is located adjacent to the response site (Harrison, 1979(Harrison, , 1981Neill & Harrison, 1987). Immediate acquisition of sound-source location discrimination also is obtained in squirrel and rhesus monkeys, cats, dogs, and bats when these naturalistic features are used (Harrison, 1984(Harrison, , 1992.…”