Processing and retention of complex auditory stimuli in monkeys (Cebus apella)

Four monkeys were trained to discriminate between "tunes" that differed primarily in their temporal structure, or frequency envelopes. The conclusion drawn from a variety of transfer tests was that they learned the discrimination on the basis of local features of the tunes rather than on their temporal patterns. Subsequent comparisons of retention based on auditory-visual and visual-visual matching tasks suggested that this deficiency was not due to a truncated auditory short-term store. Indeed, when previous experience with remembering visual and auditory stimuli was comparable, short-term memory also seemed comparable in the 2 modalities. It is noted that the ability to discriminate and employ the frequency contours of tonal patterns may be related to the capacity for acoustically based language, and that in the human infant, these skills seem to develop in parallel. (French abstract) (36 ref)