The phrase "a leading marker" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts where you are referring to a prominent or significant indicator or sign of something.
Example: "The study identified a leading marker for early detection of the disease, which could improve patient outcomes."
Alternatives: "a primary indicator" or "a key sign".
However, detecting a gap in continuous sound is a very different task than detecting a gap after a brief leading marker as in our study.
In terms of detecting a gap in sound, our data showed that the onset of the leading marker elicited about one and a half cycles of oscillation and this resembled almost perfectly the responses to the onset of the no-gap stimulus.
Most importantly, the 40-Hz responses to the leading marker were consistent across ages except a small increase in latency with increasing age.
An age-related increase in the time constant of the response to the leading marker would increase the degree to which a response to the initial marker masks the response to the lagging marker [17].
Moving from family-based linkage studies to population-based genetic association analysis causes a shift from microsatellite markers to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as the leading marker for genetic analysis.
Leading markers of 10 and 40 ms duration had been used by Gage et al. [45] who reported a decrease in N1m amplitude with increasing gap duration for the 10-ms leading marker stimulus.
Additionally, the sound onset elicits a strong sensation, which interacts with detecting a gap shortly after sound onset and gap detection thresholds are elevated for short leading marker durations [8].
Their appearance has become the leading marker of their gay identity.
The peak latencies were delayed by 28 ms with respect to the center of the gap for the stimuli with short leading marker and 23 ms for the long leading marker (Figure 8B).
