Aural harmonics: estimation consistency from tone-on-tone masking measurements.
Amplitudes of inaudible "subjective" signals are inferred from tone-on-tone masking measurements. Several methodological issues are involved, e.g., the problems of how many and which measurements to include. To explore such sampling questions, sets of masked thresholds using a 250-Hz masker and a 500-Hz maskee are determined at various phase angles. These measurements are distributed into subsamples of (n=) 13, 9, 7, 5, or 4 each, and repeated estimates of the second aural harmonic inferred. For n greater than 4, these estimates averaged to within +/- 1 dB of one another,, although individual estimates vary considerably with the smaller n's (to 13 dB with n=4). Sets of five consecutive measurements also were analyzed when the masker : maskee phase angle was incremented in 90 degrees steps through two complete periods (of the maskee). Again, the reestimates for individuals can vary by at least 6 dB, but the averages over seven subjects remain within 2 dB of each other. Apparently, for n's of six or more, it matters little which masker: maskee phase angles are used to estimate the aural harmonic amplitudes.
D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013016:Sound