JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR AUDITORY REACTION TIME AND THE DERIVATION OF EQUAL LOUDNESS CONTOURS FOR THE MONKEY'

Monkeys were trained to release a telegraph key at the onset of a pure tone. Latency of the response was measured over a 70-db range of sound pressure (re 0.0002 dyn/cm') at six frequencies (250 to 15,000 cps). Latency was found to be an inverse exponential function of intensity at all frequencies. Equal loudness was inferred from the equal latency contours which were constructed from the latency-intensity functions at each frequency. These data indicate peak auditory sensitivity for the monkey near 1000 cps. At the frequencies above and below 1000 cps consistently more sound energy was required for equal latency. In conventional usage the simple reaction time experiment implies a set of contingencies designed to ensure a "minimal " interval be-tween presentation of a stimulus and emission of an operant response. A sequence of two re-sponses is established, and each is under the control of a different stimulus. The response to the first stimulus is "preparatory " an