Loudness effects in pairs of tone bursts

Abstract

The loudness of dichotic and monotic pairs of short tone bursts was investigated as a function of the interburst time interval. For short intervals, the loudness was increased relative ty the loudness of a single burst. However, the loudness of a burst pair was equal to the loudness of the second burst in the pair and, therefore, no loudness summation but only a loudness enhancement took place. In dichotic bursts, the loudness enhancement decayed monotonically as the time interval increased, and the rate of decay increased with sound intensity. In monotic bursts, the loudness enhancement decayed to a minimum at about 40 msec, independent of sound intensity. It had a tendency to rebound at longer time intervals and go through a relative maximum in the vicinity of 200 msec. The results are interpreted in terms of an interaction of peripheral and central poststimulatory inhibition with temporal summation. © 1971 Psychonomic Journals, Inc.