Vowel discrimination in cats: thresholds for the detection of second formant changes in the vowel /epsilon/.

The ability of cats to discriminate changes in the second formant of the vowel /epsilon/ was examined across a range of stimulus levels. Cats were trained to press and hold down a lever to produce a pulsed train of the standard vowel /epsilon/, and to release the lever only when a variant of [epsilon] occurred. Six synthetic variants of /epsilon/ had the same first and third formants (F1 and F3), but with the second formant (F2) located between 1700 and 2000 Hz.

Vowel discrimination in cats: acquisition, effects of stimulus level, and performance in noise.

The ability of cats to discriminate accurately among different synthetic, steady-state vowels was examined across a range of stimulus levels and in background noise. Cats were trained to press and hold down a lever to produce a pulsed train of a standard vowel stimulus, and to release the lever only when a different vowel sound occurred. Five synthetic vowels were tested (/e/, /ae/, /a/, /o/, and /u/) at levels of 30, 50, 70, and 90 dB SPL.

Frequency discrimination in noise: comparison of cat performances with auditory-nerve models.

Pure-tone frequency discrimination (delta F) performances were measured in cats and compared to neural models of these delta F performances based on auditory-nerve data in cats. Animal psychophysical techniques were used to train cats to discriminate frequency changes for pulsed pure tones in background noise at both 1.0 and 3.

Single-unit recording in the ventral cochlear nucleus of behaving cats.

A method is described for single-unit recording in the ventral cochlear nucleus (VCN) of behaving cats. Five cats were implanted with titanium head-restraint devices and acetal plastic recording chambers. The recording chamber directed microelectrodes through the cerebellum and into the VCN.