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THE EFFECTS OF VARYING THE DISTRIBUTION OF GENERALIZATION STIMULI WITHIN A CONSTANT RANGE UPON THE BISECTION OF A SOUND‐INTENSITY INTERVAL BY RATS 1
Author(s) -
Raslear Thomas G.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1975.23-369
Subject(s) - decibel , stimulus (psychology) , bisection , generalization , stimulus generalization , mathematics , psychophysics , audiology , psychology , acoustics , mathematical analysis , cognitive psychology , physics , perception , neuroscience , geometry , medicine
Two male, albino rats were trained on a two‐valued, self‐paced, discrete‐trials auditory discrimination. In the presence of a high‐intensity stimulus (90 decibels SPL, 4 kiloHertz), response A was reinforced; in the presence of a low‐intensity stimulus (50 decibels SPL, 4 kiloHertz), response B was reinforced. When discrimination performance was asymptotic, stimuli intermediate in intensity were presented with the training stimuli in a maintained generalization paradigm. Generalization gradients were derived from the relative frequencies of response A in the presence of each stimulus. A relative frequency of 0.50 was then determined and used as the bisection point of the intensity interval defined by the 90‐ and 50‐decibel stimuli. The bisection point varied with the distribution of the stimuli presented in generalization. This effect was similar to context effects seen in human psychophysics.