The function of the tectum for attention to auditory stimuli in the cat

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Abstract
Cats were trained to avoid a shock by moving from one to the other compartment of a double grill box at the onset of a compound signal which consisted of a soft low tone and a bright flashing light. After training on the compound signal unreinforced test trials were given on the tone alone and the light alone. By this procedure the relative potency of sound and light was established for normal cats and cats deprived of various structures in their auditory system. On the basis of this and other subsidiary experiments also reported here, several conclusions seem warranted:1. In normal cats sound is a prepotent stimulus over light. 2. The prepotency of sound does not depend on the intensities of the competing stimuli. 3. Even with approximately 90% of the second order auditory fibers destroyed, sound is still prepotent over light. 4. Bilateral removal of auditory cortex does not affect the prepotency of sound. 5. Deep bilateral section of the brachia of the inferior colliculus and small bilateral lesions in the apices of the inferior colliculi abolish the prepotency of sound. 6. The loss of the prepotency of sound after midbrain lesions is not the result of a change in absolute threshold for the sound.

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