Effect of Spatial Separation in Azimuth on the Threshold of Forward Masking in Time Domain
Xie Zhi-wen · Audio Engineering · 2005
In this experiment,forward masking effect was studied when the masking and masked sources are spatially separated in azimuth,and compared with single-loudspeaker reproduction condition. Thresholds for the detection of brief sinusoidal signals (250,1170 and 4000Hz) masked respectively by three narrowband noise forward maskers were measured as a function of masker level (30,40,50,60 and 70dB). For spatial separation condition,the thresholds tended to drop by a relative large amount,with only very few exceptions. The results were analyzed by the combination of better-ear contribution,binaural effect and etc. In general,it can be concluded that the spatial separation of masking and masked sources will weaken the effect of forward masking in time domain. This conclusion can serve as a theoretic basis for improving digital audio compression scheme.