Masking patterns for continuous and gated sinusoids

Abstract

The masking of a brief tonal signal by continuous and gated sinusoids was investigated. Masking patterns depicting the threshold of a signal of frequency fs as a function of masker frequency fm for the two masker presentations were compared. In the frequency region fm ≳ fs, the briefly presented gates masker was always a more effective masker than the continuous steady-state background, even under conditions in which energy spread of the gated masker was minimized. For fm < fs, the gated–continuous threshold shift, sometimes called the ’’overshoot,’’ reversed when a low-level background noise was added to the tonal nasker in order to mask audible combination tones. The presence of combination tones in the steady-state masker condition precluded application of a simple energy detection model in the frequency region fm < fs. An attempt to simulate the results for fm ≳ fs with an energy-detection scheme in conjunction with a detailed spectral analysis of the stimuli was also unsuccessful.Subject Classification: 65.58, 65.50, 65.75.