The critical masking interval, the time period during which wideband noise is effective in masking a brief signal (click), is investigated. Both the click and the noise are low-pass filtered so that the power spectra of signal and noise have similar shape. In the first experiment, a click is presented in the temporal center of the masker and the masked threshold is measured as the duration of the masker is varied from 2ms to 400ms. The result shows that the critical masking interval is 12 to 20ms. In the second experiment, the simultaneously masked threshold of a click is measured in various temporal locations relative to the noise burst whose duration varies. That is, the interval T_1 between the onset of the noise and the click, or the interval T_2 between the click and the offset of the noise is varied. The results are as follows: (1) The masked threshold is not greatly affected by changing the duration T_1 from 1ms to 100ms when the duration T_2 is fixed at 100ms. Inversely, the threshold increases as the duration T_2 is varied from 1ms to 10ms for T_1=100ms. (2) When the click is located at the onset of the masker (T_1=0ms) or at the offset (T_2=0ms), the threshold increases with T_2(T_1) at the rate of 10dB/decade for T_2(T_1) less than 10ms. (3) Overshoot, the increase in masking for intermediate noise durations occurs under the condition of T_1=T_2≠0 or T_1=0 or T_2=0. Next, it is shown that the overshoot phenomenon can be interpreted by a running average model if it is assumed that subjects adopt two different criteria in detecting of the click for short-maskers and for long-maskers. Finally, if it is assumed that internal response to the masker in the auditory system persist, gradually decaying, after its physical termination, the above results (1) and (2) imply that the threshold is greatly affected by the internal response following the click and the effective time interval in masking is about 10ms.
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