Abstract

SOUZA, Carlos Barbosa Alves de; RAMOS, Camila Carvalho; GALVAO, Olavo de Faria  and  BARROS, Romariz da Silva. Effect of pairing auditory and specific reinforcers stimuli on auditory-visual discrimination in capuchins. Temas psicol. [online]. 2008, vol.16, n.2, pp.199-214. ISSN 1413-389X.

This study aimed to verify with a capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) if the use of auditory stimuli as specific conditioned reinforcers in visual simple discrimination facilitates the acquisition of auditory-visual discrimination (AVD) with the same stimuli. In Experiment 1, the subject was a given training on repeated shifts of simple discrimination with two visual stimuli paired with two specific auditory stimuli as conditioned reinforcers, and then it was given an AVD test with respectively the same stimuli. Experiment 2 replicated the previous experiment, including a third stimulus pair and also a primary specific reinforcement procedure was introduced. Experiment 3 aimed to train AVD using blocks of trials (the positive stimulus was the same in successive trials), with removal of the previously positive stimulus in the next trial block. Subject's performance accuracy was at any chance level in AVD tests in all experiments. We discuss the need of using different auditory stimuli and other procedures to teach AVD in subsequent studies.

Keywords : Simple discrimination; Auditory-visual discrimination; Specific reinforcers; Cebus apella.

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