Growth of masking for 1-kHz tone with normal-hearing listeners: Effects of signal duration and noise frequency

The goal of this study was to examine effects of two acoustic features, signal duration and noise frequency, on growth of masking (GOM). A 1-kHz pure tone was present in four types of noise simultaneously, low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, and notched noise. Results showed that GOM functions were significantly affected by signal duration, noise frequency, and their interaction. In band-pass noise, short-term signal increased thresholds with medium noise levels at a significantly greater rate (1.6 dB/dB) than long-term signals. For the other three types of noise, signal thresholds were elevated at a rate of 1 dB/dB with noise level independent of signal duration. These results suggested that the cochlear compressive nonlinearity was critical in signal detection in noise.