Psychophysical tuning curves map masker level needed to just mask a fixed tone.

Evidence

Sound of a given frequency can block our ability to hear softer sounds at nearby frequencies, but distant frequencies are not affected. The threshold for detecting the softer sound is raised by the presence of a louder sound within the same critical bandwidth. Even if the softer sound is audible, it will not seem as loud as it would if played alone. Similarly, two tones that fall within the same critical bandwidth will appear to be less loud together than two tones of the same total energy that fall outside each others’ critical bandwidths. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Variable-frequency experiments reveal frequency effects that fixed-frequency masking hides.; Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009; Clinical masking directly applies Fletcher’s critical band theory

Related

• Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected (similarity 0.88)
• Variable-frequency experiments reveal frequency effects that fixed-frequency masking hides. (similarity 0.88)
• Clinical masking directly applies Fletcher’s critical band theory (similarity 0.88)
• Noise fluctuations within narrow critical bands raise the masking index (similarity 0.88)
• Large FM deviations escape narrow-band masking by drifting into unmasked frequency ranges (similarity 0.87)
• Psychophysical tuning curves measure frequency selectivity via tone-on-tone masking. (similarity 0.87)
• Masker effectiveness is determined solely by power falling within one auditory filter. (similarity 0.87)
• Auditory masking depends only on energy within a band surrounding the signal. (similarity 0.87)
• Critical bandwidth marks the perceptual shift from rough to smooth tone resolution (similarity 0.87)
• Masking operates on a continuous scale between audible and fully masked. (similarity 0.86)
• Equal-level narrow-band maskers mask less at higher centre frequencies (similarity 0.86)
• Increasing stimulus level broadens auditory filters and causes upward spread of masking (similarity 0.86)
• Broad-band noise masking erases individual differences in quiet threshold (similarity 0.86)
• Added masking noise prevents off-frequency cues in hearing experiments (similarity 0.86)
• Masking depends on stimulus fluctuations in ways steady-state models cannot predict. (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Variable-frequency experiments reveal frequency effects that fixed-frequency masking hides. #complicates (0.85)
• Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected #expands (0.80) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009