Effects of masker gating for signal detection in unmodulated and modulated bandlimited noise

Thresholds for a 400-ms 1000-Hz pure-tone signal were obtained as a function of masking noise bandwidth for unmodulated and square wave modulated masking noise. Rates of modulation were 10 and 40 Hz. Noise bandwidths were 128 Hz, 387 Hz, 921 Hz, and 1505 Hz. The masking noise was either continuous or gated on and off with the signal. In general, signal thresholds were relatively constant as a function of noise bandwidth in unmodulated noise, and improved as a function of increasing noise bandwidth in modulated noise. Noise gating had little or no effect on signal threshold in unmodulated noise. At the 10-Hz modulation rate, signal thresholds were somewhat higher in gated than in continuous noise at relatively narrow noise bandwidths, but thresholds were similar in gated and continuous noise for relatively wide noise bandwidths. At bandwidths of 387, 921, and 1505 Hz, comodulation masking release (CMR) was calculated as the unmodulated noise threshold minus the modulated noise threshold, corrected by the difference between the unmodulated noise threshold and the modulated noise threshold at the 128-Hz bandwidths. At wide masker bandwidth, CMRs were higher for gated noise than for continuous noise. This was due almost entirely to the threshold gating effect found in the 128-Hz bandwidth condition. These results suggested that there was a within-channel effect for gated noise thresholds to be higher than continuous noise thresholds, but essentially no across-channel effect of gating. At the 40-Hz modulation rate, signal thresholds were similar for gated and continuous noise at all noise bandwidths. There was a very small but significant effect for the gated noise threshold to be lower than the continuous noise threshold at the widest noise bandwidth. It was speculated that this effect may be related to a decrease in sensitivity to modulation with continuous stimulation. In general, effects of gating appear to be small or absent for across-channel masking release in broadband modulated masking noise. (C) 1996 Acoustical Society of America.