Backward masking is a weak and unreliable effect appearing mainly in novice listeners.

Evidence

Backward masking has an effect only 5–10 ms before the onset of the masker, and relatively low-level sounds are masked. The effect seems to appear only in inexperienced listeners. Thus, backward masking is not interesting in the context of acoustic communication, and it is not discussed further in this book. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1017

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1017