Disruption and habituation of stable fixed-interval behavior in younger and older monkeys

Reactivity to novel and irrelevant stimuli has been shown to vary as a function of age. Since differential responsivity to irrelevant events may account for purported age differences on other tasks, the present experiment studied the extent to which these age differences may be reduced with repeated exposure, i.e., habituation. Young (2 to 3 years) and old (15+ years) squirrel monkeys were trained and their performance stabilized over months on a fixed-interval operant task. This behavior was then disrupted by periodic presentations of an auditory stimulus of moderate intensity. Disruption of stable behavior and habituation to the tone stimulus were evaluated across several measures including overall response rates between and within the daily sessions; recovery of baseline response rates during the tone stimulus; and the curvature of the fixed interval "scallop." Old monkeys responded for sweet fruit juice more frequently, but less efficiently, than young monkeys. Their responding was more severely disrupted by intermittent novel auditory stimuli, to which they were slower to habituate.