Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Hear Res. 2011 Jul;277(1-2):127-33. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2011.02.001. Epub 2011 Feb 12.
The common marmoset is a small, arboreal, New World primate that has emerged as a promising non-human model system in auditory neuroscience. A complete understanding of the neuroethology of auditory processing in marmosets will include behavioral work examining how sounds are perceived by these animals. However, there have been few studies of the marmoset's hearing and perceptual abilities and the audiogram of this species has not been measured using modern psychophysical methods. The present experiment pairs psychophysics with an operant conditioning technique to examine perception of pure tone stimuli by marmosets using an active behavioral paradigm. Subjects were trained to lick at a feeding tube when they detected a sound. Correct responses provided access to a food reward. Pure tones of varying intensities were presented to subjects using the method of constant stimuli. Behavioral thresholds were calculated for each animal based on hit rate--threshold was defined by the tone intensity that the animal correctly identified 50% of the time. Results show that marmoset hearing is comparable to that of other New World monkeys, with a hearing range extending from about 125 Hz up to 36 kHz and a sensitivity peak around 7 kHz.
普通狨猴是一种小型的树栖新世界灵长类动物，它已成为听觉神经科学中一种有前途的非人类模型系统。要全面了解狨猴听觉处理的神经行为学，就需要进行行为研究，以检验这些动物是如何感知声音的。然而，对狨猴听力和感知能力的研究很少，而且该物种的听力图尚未使用现代心理物理方法进行测量。本实验将心理物理学与操作性条件反射技术相结合，通过主动行为范式研究狨猴对纯音刺激的感知。当动物检测到声音时，会被训练去舔进样管。正确的反应可以获得食物奖励。使用恒定刺激法向被试呈现不同强度的纯音。根据击中率为每个动物计算行为阈值——阈值定义为动物正确识别 50%时间的声音强度。结果表明，狨猴的听力与其他新世界猴相当，听觉范围从约 125Hz 延伸到 36kHz，灵敏度峰值在 7kHz 左右。
