Width of the Spectrum Effective in the Binaural Release of Masking

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In an experiment concerned with the binaural masking-level difference phenomenon, an attempt was made to determine the extent of the masker spectrum effective in the release of masking. The experiment utilized a uniform power-spectrum noise separated into two bands differing in interaural phase - an "inner" band surrounding the test signal and "outer" band. Binaural masking-level differences (BMLD''s) were traced as functions of the interaural signal phase (0 and [PI] rad), the relative phase of the bands (0 and rad), and the bandwidth of the inner band. It was found that a narrow inner band homophasic with respect to signal phase could destroy much of the release of masking owing to the heterophasic outer band. The converse was not true: a wide heterophasic band (125 and 200 cps centered at 250 and 500 cps, respectively) was required to produce significant release. These results depart significantly from predictions of the equalization-cancellation theory of binaural masking and furthermore do not support an assumption that BMLD is a function of the interaural noise crosscorrelation coefficient only.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: