Simultaneous tones become harder to perceive due to masking effects
Evidence
When two or more pure tones are heard together an effect known as “masking” can occur, where each individual tone can become more diffi cult or impossible to perceive, or it is partially or completely “masked,” due to the presence of another tone. In such a case the tone which causes the masking is known as the “masker” and the tone which 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 fre quency components of a note played on one instrument which mask either other components in that note, or frequency components of another note. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1628
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the foundational terms masker and maskee alongside the masking phenomenon itself.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1628
- XREF: connects to: Low-level tones mask lower frequencies more than higher ones, reversing at high levels; Masked threshold shape changes with masker level, becoming more asymmetric at high levels; Two-tone suppression lets strong signal components override weaker nearby ones (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Masking acts within critical bandwidths, leaving distant-frequency sounds unaffected
#qualifies(0.90) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2009