title: Nonadditivity of forward and simultaneous masking.
abstract: The current study measured the additional masking obtained for combinations of forward and simultaneous maskers as a function of forward masker bandwidth, signal delay, and simultaneous masker level. The effects of the two individual maskers were equated in all conditions. Additional masking increased with increasing masker level, increasing signal delay, and decreasing masker bandwidth. The portion of the simultaneous masker that made the greater contribution to additional masking was the part that overlapped with the signal, not with the forward masker. The changes in additional masking observed as a function of forward masker bandwidth and the interaction between the effects of forward and simultaneous maskers call into question the use of additional masking as a measure of basilar membrane compression and present problems for the use of simultaneous noise to simulate hearing loss.
authors.affiliation: Center for Hearing Research, Boys Town National Research Hospital, 555 N. 30th Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68131.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Svec
authors.forename: Suyash N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Walt
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jesteadt
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D055815:Young Adult