title: The relationship between precursor level and the temporal effect.
abstract: Previous studies have suggested that temporal effects in masking may be consistent with a decrease in cochlear gain. One paradigm used to show this is to measure the level of a long-duration masker required to just mask a short-duration tone that occurs near masker onset. The temporal effect is revealed when the signal is detected at a lower signal-to-noise ratio following preceding stimulation (either an extension of the masker or a separate precursor). The present study examined whether this effect depends on precursor level. The signal was a 10-ms, 4-kHz tone. The masker was 200 ms. A fixed-level precursor had the same frequency characteristics as the masker, and was 205 ms. The masker and precursor had either no notch or a wide notch about the signal frequency. For a given precursor level, the growth of masker level with signal level was determined. These data were used to estimate input-output functions. The results are consistent with a graded decrease in gain at the signal frequency when there is no notch in the masker and precursor, and a graded decrease in suppression when there is a large notch. These results could be consistent with the action of the medial olivocochlear reflex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2038, USA. estrick@purdue.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Strickland
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000523:psychology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D003051:Cochlea / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D018072:Hair Cells, Auditory, Outer / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009847:Olivary Nucleus / Q000502:physiology; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012018:Reflex / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors