Date of Award

Summer 8-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Dr. Stanley A. Kuczaj III

Committee Chair Department

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Dr. James Finneran

Committee Member 2 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 3

Dr. Dorian Houser

Committee Member 3 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 4

Dr. John Harsh

Committee Member 4 Department

Psychology

Committee Member 5

Dr. David Echevarria

Committee Member 5 Department

Psychology

Abstract

The long latency auditory evoked potentials (AEP) in response to repeated tones and oddball tones of a different frequency were recorded in four bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) with differing levels of experience with this recording paradigm. The stimuli used were 100 ms pure tones, and the AEP was recorded from stimulus onset to 500 ms after stimulus onset. Difference waves that were calculated by subtracting the waveform evoked by the repeated tone from the waveform evoked by the oddball tone showed that in the latency range of 40 to 60 ms after stimulus onset showed that the response to the oddball was higher in amplitude to that of the repeated tone, especially for large differences in frequency. This trend was termed the P50 difference and may be a useful metric of auditory discrimination in the bottlenose dolphin. Some caution should be made in interpreting these results because of the possible effects of experience on AEP recording, and because of the degree of individual differences.

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