An Automated Psychoacoustic Testing Apparatus for Use in Cats
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Date
2014-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Animal behavioral studies make a significant contribution to hearing research and provide vital information which is not available from human subjects. Animal psychoacoustics is usually extremely time consuming and labor intensive; in addition, animals may become stressed, especially if restraints or negative reinforcers such as electric shocks are used. We present a novel behavioral experimental system that was developed to allow efficient animal training in response to acoustic stimuli. Cats were required to perform a relatively simple task of moving toward and away from the device depending on whether the members of a tone pair were different or the same in frequency (go/no-go task). The experimental setup proved to be effective, with all animals (N = 7) performing at above 90% correct on an easy task. Animals were trained within 2-4 weeks and then generated a total of 150-200 trials per day, distributed within approximately 8 self initiated sessions. Data collected using this system were stable over 1 week and repeatable over long test periods (14 weeks). Measured frequency discrimination thresholds from 3 animals at 3 different reference frequencies were comparable with previously published results. The main advantages of the system are: relatively simple setup; large amounts of data can be generated without the need of researcher supervision; multiple animals can be tested simultaneously without removal from home pens; and no electric shocks or restraints are required.
Description
Keywords
Acoustic Stimulation/instrumentation, Animal Feed, Animals, Auditory Threshold, Automation, Laboratory, Behavior, Animal*, Cats, Cues, Equipment Design, Loudness Perception, Materials Testing, Models, Animal, Motor Activity, Pitch Discrimination, Psychoacoustics, Reinforcement (Psychology), Reproducibility of Results, Time Factors
Citation
Benovitski, Y. B., Blamey, P. J., Rathbone, G. D. &, Fallon, J. B. (2014). An automated psychoacoustic testing apparatus for use in cats. Hearing Research 309, pp. 1-7