Psychoacoustic demonstrations of adaptation in hearing
Craig A. Champlin, Linda M. Thibodeau, Dennis McFadden · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1991
Adaptation in sensory systems involves a decline in the responsiveness to a steady stimulus with time. Three acoustic demonstrations will be presented to illustrate psychoacoustic phenomena that are thought to be related to adaptation processes. (1) Overshoot: The detectability of a brief tonal signal is often improved when its onset is delayed relative to the onset of a wide-band masker. (2) Enhancement for nonspeech sounds: The detectability of a pure-tone component in a complex sound is often improved when it is preceded by a complex in which the energy in the corresponding frequency region has been reduced. (3) Enhancement for speech sounds: Vowel-like sounds are often perceived from spectrally flat harmonic complexes when they are preceded by complexes in which the energy in the frequency regions corresponding to that vowel's formants has been reduced.