Partial masking reduces loudness without fully hiding the test tone
Evidence
If the masker is increased steadily, there is a continuous transition between an audible (unmasked) test tone and one that is totally masked. This means that besides total masking, partial masking also occurs. Partial masking reduces the loudness of a test tone but does not mask the test tone completely. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 398
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Distinguishes partial from total masking and links the former to loudness reduction.
Related
- Masking is graded, with partial masking reducing loudness rather than audibility. (similarity 0.96)
- Partially masked sounds have a reduced loudness range in both time and spectrum (similarity 0.92)
- Partial masking steepens the loudness function in a way that mirrors hearing recruitment (similarity 0.86)
- Loudness measures span quiet, masked, spectral, and temporal domains (similarity 0.86)
- Masking shifts thresholds upward and may alter just-noticeable sound changes at all levels. (similarity 0.86)
- Partial masking of a tone by background noise diminishes as tone level rises (similarity 0.85)
- Masking noise raises the loudness threshold and fades audible tones (similarity 0.85)
- Partial masking shifts pitch away from the masker’s spectral region (similarity 0.84)
- Partially masking a tone shifts its perceived pitch upward (similarity 0.84)
- Simultaneous masking raises a test tone’s just-audible level above threshold in quiet. (similarity 0.84)
- Maskers affect modulation detection through their excitation patterns, not their raw level (similarity 0.84)
- Masking shifts detection thresholds and may affect just-noticeable sound changes (similarity 0.84)
- Masked threshold always exceeds quiet threshold except when masker and test frequencies differ greatly (similarity 0.83)
- Maskers below a tone raise its pitch while maskers above lower it. (similarity 0.83)
- Everyday speech communication usually occurs under partial masking conditions (similarity 0.83)