Spatial and temporal disparity in signals and maskers affects signal detection in non-human primates.

Spatial and temporal disparity in signals and maskers affects signal detection in non-human primates. Hear Res. 2016 Oct 19;: Authors: Rocchi F, Dylla ME, Bohlen PA, Ramachandran R Abstract Detection thresholds for auditory stimuli (signals) increase in the presence of maskers. Natural environments contain maskers/distractors that can have a wide range of spatiotemporal properties relative to the signal. While these parameters have been well explored psychophysically in humans, they have not been well explored in animal models, and their neuronal underpinnings are not well understood. As a precursor to the neuronal measurements, we report the effects of systematically varying the spatial and temporal relationship between signals and noise in macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta and Macaca radiata). Macaques detected tones masked by noise in a Go/No-Go task in which the spatiotemporal relationships between the tone and noise were systematically varied. Masked thresholds were higher when the masker was continuous or gated on and off simultaneously with the signal, and lower when the continuous masker was turned off during the signal. A burst of noise caused higher masked thresholds if it completely temporally overlapped with the signal, whereas partial overlap resulted in lower thresholds. Noise durations needed to be at least 100 ms before significant masking could be observed. Thresholds for short duration tones were significantly higher...
Source: Hearing Research - Category: Audiology Authors: Tags: Hear Res Source Type: research
More News: Audiology