The functional analysis of auditory discrimination.

Mammals have evolved the ability to acquire auditory discriminations. The characteristics of this discriminative ability presumably fit the natural conditions under which discriminations are normally acquired. The purpose of this paper is to review experiments which were directed at showing that auditory discriminations are most rapidly acquired when natural features are incorporated into the experiments. The experiments were also directed at discovering the underlying characteristics of the discriminative ability. When animals were trained to discriminate the position of a sound source in which natural features were incorporated into the experiment, the discrimination was acquired in one trial. Manipulation of the natural features suggested that one trial acquisition depends upon the following. (1) Stimulus novelty; the effect of reinforcement is stronger in the presence of novel than familiar stimuli. (2) Specific behavioral effect of reinforcement; the effect of reinforcing a response in the presence of a novel auditory stimulus is to increase the strength of approaching and manipulating the sound source.