One tone can make another tone inaudible through masking

Evidence

When two or more pure tones are heard together, an effect known as “masking” can occur, in which each individual tone can become more difficult or impossible to perceive, or it is partially or completely “masked” due to the presence of another tone. In such a case, the tone that causes the masking is known as the “masker” and the tone that is masked is known as the “maskee.” These tones could be individual pure tones, but, given the rarity of such sounds in music, they are more likely to be individual frequency components of a note played on one instrument that mask either other components in that note or frequency components of another note. The extent to which masking occurs depends on the frequencies of the masker and maskee and their amplitudes. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1592

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines masking, masker, and maskee — the core psychoacoustic concept of one sound hiding another.
• XREF: connects to: Loud tones can render simultaneous tones partially or wholly imperceptible

Related

• Loud tones can render simultaneous tones partially or wholly imperceptible (similarity 0.94)
• Simultaneous tones become harder to perceive due to masking effects (similarity 0.94)
• Loud low-frequency tones mask high frequencies more than high tones mask low. (similarity 0.90)
• Low-level tones mask lower frequencies more than higher ones, reversing at high levels (similarity 0.90)
• LP distortion is audible with test tones but masked by music. (similarity 0.86)
• Masking depends on acoustic relationships between masker and signal, not on subjective noise. (similarity 0.86)
• A masker’s intensity, frequency content, and temporal pattern determine its masking capability. (similarity 0.86)
• Masking occurs when one sound interferes with perceiving another (similarity 0.86)
• Tonal maskers create distinct audible regions beyond simple masking (similarity 0.86)
• Masking noise raises the loudness threshold and fades audible tones (similarity 0.86)
• Masking is quantified by the shift in a listener’s hearing-threshold curve (similarity 0.86)
• Masking reduces how prominently audible combination-tone beating is (similarity 0.86)
• Increasing stimulus level broadens auditory filters and causes upward spread of masking (similarity 0.86)
• Simultaneous masking raises a test tone’s just-audible level above threshold in quiet. (similarity 0.86)
• Masking noise prevents listeners from using unintended spectral cues (similarity 0.85)