Abstract
An experiment tested the hypothesis that the masking effects of two nonoverlapping forward maskers are summed linearly over time. First, the levels of individual noise maskers required to mask a brief 4-kHz signal presented at 10-, 20-, 30-, or 40-dB sensation level (SL) were found. The hypothesis predicts that a combination of the first masker presented at the level required to mask the 10-dB SL signal and the second masker presented at the level required to mask the 20-dB SL signal, should produce the same amount of masking as the converse situation (i.e., the first masker presented at the level required to mask the 20-dB SL signal and the second masker presented at the level required to mask the 10-dB SL signal), and similarly for the 30- and 40-dB SL signals. The results were consistent with the predictions.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1880-1883 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of the Acoustical Society of America |
| Volume | 122 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2007 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank the Editor and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. The work was supported by EPSRC (UK) Grant No. GR/N07219, BBSRC (UK) Grant No. BB/D012953/1, and NIDCD Grant No. R01 DC 03909.