The emphasis in psychobiology is on audition, using computer applications and operant conditioning techniques, as well as on psychophysical methods, evolutionary theory, comparative acoustics, and behavioral neuroscience. Learning research is directed toward basic areas in the discipline, such as the effect of response effort on learning and secondary reinforcement, conflict and frustration, and the investigation of learning in primitive, simple organisms. A brief description of the research interests of the faculty and a selection of more recent publications follows.
Asterisks indicate students.
Learning, reinforcement processes, effect of response effort on behavior, secondary reinforcement, conflict and frustration. Effect of response effort on secondary reward value. Response difficulty-response rate relation and sex of subjects. Effects of frustration increase and decrease on the percentage of short interresponse times. Role of auditory cortex, comparative mammalian learning, ethics of animal research.