Suprathreshold effects of adaptation produced by amplitude modulation.

Abstract

This work extends the study of adaptation to amplitude modulation (AM) to the perception of highly detectable modulation. A fixed-level matching procedure was used to find perceptually equivalent modulation depths for 16-Hz modulation imposed on a 1-kHz standard and a 4-kHz comparison. The modulation depths in the two stimuli were compared before and after a 10-min exposure to a 1-kHz tone (adaptor) 100% modulated in amplitude at different rates. For modulation depths of 63% (20 log m = -4) and smaller, the perceived modulation depth was reduced after exposure to the adaptor that was modulated at the same rate as the standard. The size of this reduction expressed as a difference between the post- and pre-exposure AM depths was similar to the increase in AM-detection threshold observed after adaptation. Postexposure suprathreshold modulation depth was not appreciably reduced when the modulation depth of the standard was large (approached 100%). A much smaller or no reduction in the perceived modulation depth was also observed when the modulation rates of the adaptor and the standard tone were different. The tuning of the observed effect of the adaptor appears to be much sharper than the tuning shown by modulation-masking results.