Masking by modulated and unmodulated noise: effects of bandwidth, modulation rate, signal frequency, and masker level

The threshold for a sinusoidal signal masked by a band of noise is often times lower when the masking noise is modulated than when it is unmodulated. The difference in masked thresholds is referred to as the modulated-unmodulated difference, or MUD. These present experiments examined the effects of masker bandwidth, masker rate, and masker level on the MUD at several different signal frequencies. The MUD generally increased with increasing masker bandwidth; for masker bandwidths wider than a critical band (or an equivalent rectangular bandwidth-ERB), the results may be influenced by across-channel processes underlying comodulation masking release. The MUD for an ERB masker (MUDERB) was influenced less by masker rate than was the MUD for a broadband (BB) masker (MUDBB). The MUDERB and especially the MUDBB increased significantly with increasing masker level when the modulated masker was modulated at a depth (m) of 1.0, but not when it was modulated at a depth of 0.75. These results have significant implications for extending the MUD paradigm to hearing-impaired subjects. Finally, the MUDERB and the MUDBB increased with increasing signal frequency. This effect for the ERB masker is largely (if not completely) due to the wider absolute bandwidths at higher frequencies. The effect with the BB masker may be influenced by differences in the magnitude of suppression across frequency.