Forward masking decays within roughly 200 ms after sound offset

Evidence

The masking level decreases linearly after 5–10 ms from the offset, and after about 200 ms the threshold of hearing in silence is reached (Fastl and Zwicker, 2007). — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1022

Categorization

• XREF: This decay time sets limits on temporal masking in audio coding and on how quickly listeners recover sensitivity after loud sounds — relevant to acoustic communication systems.