An auditory perception of changes in the intensity of pulses, presented in complicated sound complex

Abstract

The auditory system of humans and animals is able to detect and discriminate high frequency pulses in a complicated sound complex. The purpose of the work was to find new examples of a facilitation the discrimination of intensity (or level, defined by a peak amplitude) of a test pulses, presented under composite masking conditions, and to find the possible mechanisms underlying the facilitation. The discrimination tended to deteriorate if the test pulse was presented through 50 ms after a pulse’s masker. However, if the test pulse was mixed with stationary noise, the beginning of which coincided with the end of the pulse’s masker, discrimination became better. The noise levels, at which facilitation occurred, depended on amplitudes of both the test pulses and the pulse’s maskers. When the duration of the noise was less than 50 ms, an auditory adaptation could not influence on the discrimination. The reason of the facilitation could be in the temporal redistribution of the auditory nerve fibers activities,...