TY - JOUR
T1 - The masking-level difference and overall masker level
T2 - Restating the internal noise hypothesis
AU - Yost, William A.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 1988/4
Y1 - 1988/4
N2 - Recent investigations of the masking-level difference (MLD) have often involved measurement of the MLD as a function of masker level. The results show, as had earlier work, that the size of the MLD decreases as the masker level decreases. These studies have usually not considered an earlier explanation of the dependency of the MLD on masker level, that is, that additive internal noise, which is partially interaurally uncorrelated, leads to decorrelated maskers at low levels of the external masking noise. Because maskers that are decorrelated yield small MLDs, the MLD is likewise small at low masker levels. This review article shows that this explanation provides a good fit to data obtained over the past four decades. It also shows that the MLD depends less on masker level with insert phones than with supraaural phones as would be predicted by the additive internal noise explanation and the observation of lower internal noise with the use of insert phones. It is concluded, that the internal noise explanation should be considered when the MLD is measured as a function of masker level. PACS numbers: 43.66.Pn, 43.66.Dc, 43.66.Ba [NFV].
AB - Recent investigations of the masking-level difference (MLD) have often involved measurement of the MLD as a function of masker level. The results show, as had earlier work, that the size of the MLD decreases as the masker level decreases. These studies have usually not considered an earlier explanation of the dependency of the MLD on masker level, that is, that additive internal noise, which is partially interaurally uncorrelated, leads to decorrelated maskers at low levels of the external masking noise. Because maskers that are decorrelated yield small MLDs, the MLD is likewise small at low masker levels. This review article shows that this explanation provides a good fit to data obtained over the past four decades. It also shows that the MLD depends less on masker level with insert phones than with supraaural phones as would be predicted by the additive internal noise explanation and the observation of lower internal noise with the use of insert phones. It is concluded, that the internal noise explanation should be considered when the MLD is measured as a function of masker level. PACS numbers: 43.66.Pn, 43.66.Dc, 43.66.Ba [NFV].
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U2 - 10.1121/1.395907
DO - 10.1121/1.395907
M3 - Article
C2 - 3286709
AN - SCOPUS:0023914271
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 83
SP - 1517
EP - 1521
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 4
ER -