Abstract
Under certain conditions, detection of a masked tone is improved by a preceding sound (a precursor); this is the overshoot effect. Despite over half a century of research, its underlying mechanisms remain unknown. A popular hypothesis links overshoot to reduction in cochlear gain by the medial olivocochlear reflex. This is thought to reduce excitatory masking when the masker is at the signal frequency (within-channel effect) and suppressive masking when the masker is remote from the signal in frequency (across-channel effect). This hypothesis was examined in the first of the two experiments presented in this study. The results found no within-channel overshoot, indicating that the effect must be due to factors other than gain reduction at the signal frequency. While there was substantial across-frequency overshoot, the pattern of results was inconsistent with reduction in suppressive masking. Interpretation of results from overshoot experiments is often complicated by the possibility that the precursor itself might have a masking effect on the signal. The second experiment presented in this study was designed to overcome this problem.
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