Effects of informational maskers within and across trials.
The across-trial effect of maskers in conditions of informational masking was evaluated from performance on occasional trials in which the signal was presented alone. For 6 of 12 listeners participating in the study, a significant number of errors were obtained on signal-alone trials; in some cases equivalent to that signal+ masker trials. On immediately preceding trial blocks for which there were no intervening maskers, performance for these signals was perfect. The results indicate that informational maskers can have a significant effect on signal threshold, both within and across trials.
Lutfi
Robert A
RA
Department of Communicative Disorders, and Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, USA. ralutfi@wisc.edu
Alexander
Joshua M
JM
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*