TY - JOUR
T1 - Measurement of absolute auditory thresholds in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)
AU - Osmanski, Michael S.
AU - Wang, Xiaoqin
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Jenny Estes and Nathaniel Sotuyo for their generous help with animal care. We also thank Marcus Jeschke, Amanda Lauer, and an anonymous reviewer for their many helpful and insightful comments on the manuscript. Finally, we thank Rhiannon Desideri, Meredith Maguire, and Smita Mohan for their assistance in performing the experiments. This work was supported by NIH grants DC003180 , DC005808 , and DC008578 .
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.heares.2011.02.001
DO - 10.1016/j.heares.2011.02.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 21303689
AN - SCOPUS:79960237228
SN - 0378-5955
VL - 277
SP - 127
EP - 133
JO - Hearing Research
JF - Hearing Research
IS - 1-2
ER -