| Popis: |
The behavior of averaged slow waves from the cochlear nucleus in response to tone bursts masked by narrow‐ and broad‐band AM noise has been investigated in anesthetized cats. The results obtained when using narrow‐band noise may be summarized as follows: (1) the noise was effective in masking the response to the tone only when located within a limited band of frequencies (MBW) around the tone frequency; (2) the MBW increased as the power of the tone frequency with an exponent of 0.69; (3) the MBW increased as the intensity was raised, with S/N held constant. When noise whose bandwidth significantly exceeded the MBW was used as the masking stimulus, the degree of masking was essentially the same as that produced by narrow‐band noise of equal power, but whose spectrum was entirely within the MBW. This latter result seems contrary to what would be expected from critical‐band theory considerations. It is suggested that, at least for the wide‐band noise condition, the averaged slow‐wave response may be a poor indicator of behavioral masking. [Research supported by the National Institutes of Health.] |
