Does induced loudness reduction explain contextual effects in loudness judgment

Abstract

Briefly presenting an inducing tone of 70‐80 dB can substantially reduce the loudness of a subsequent test tone at or near the inducer's frequency, a phenomenon called Induced Loudness Reduction (ILR). The study of ILR emerged from earlier observations on differential contextual effects in loudness judgment: Tones of a given SPL and frequency were judged softer when presented as part of an ensemble of high rather than low SPL tones at the same frequency, relative to judgments of loudness of tones at a different sound frequency. At first, these effects of stimulus context on loudness judgment were assumed to reflect decisional processes, that is, to reflect biases in loudness judgment. On the other hand, ILR is often assumed to reflect a depression in the intensity response of the auditory system. While it is tempting to explain differential contextual effects in loudness judgment wholly in terms of ILR, the properties of ILR and the properties of contextual effects may not be identical, leaving open a possible role for decisional processes as well as sensory processes in contextual effects, and perhaps also in ILR, in both laboratory and 'real‐world' settings.