Implications of Peripheral Frequency Selectivity for Non-simultaneous Masking

Abstract

Frequency analysis at the level of the VIIIth nerve is so sharp that onset and offset effects in responses to short signals produce a non-negligible extension of the signal duration. Therefore, excitation patterns produced by signals that were separated in time, can overlap. The overlap of excitation patterns can produce masking, in simultaneous as well as in nonsimultaneous conditions. It is suggested that this peripheral part of the masking process can be held responsible for the major part of backward masking and for a part of forward masking. We refer to the above masking as transient masking. The finding that backward masking decreases with increasing probe frequency favors this interpretation.