Moore and Glasberg have revised Zwicker's loudness model to better explain (1) how equal-loudness contours change as a function of level, (2) why loudness remains constant as the bandwidth of a fixed-intensity sound increases up to the critical bandwidth, and (3) the loudness of partially masked sounds.
The results suggest that starlings are able to perceptually restore partly masked sounds and, similarly to humans, rely on prior experience.
While nuisance noise does not generally cause injury directly, in some instances it may mask sounds indicative of other developing hazards and may be a source of annoyance.
After our first tryst in my microscopic studio apartment, which required a playlist of songs to mask sounds we didn't want penetrating the paper-thin walls, we decided to hit a bar for happy hour.
However, the effectiveness of a specified room acoustic solution is difficult to predict exactly, because the most important room acoustic variables, i.e. ceiling absorption, furnishing absorption, screen height, masking sound level, speech effort and room dimensions, interact in a very complex way.
A statistically significant decrease in the area of component wave II (one masking sound caused an increased area) was seen when the pure tone masking sound became at least 15-25 db louder than the patient's threshold at that individual frequency.
In the presence of natural masking sounds, however, the effective detection distance will depend on the level and spatial distribution of the masking sound sources.
During testing, masking sound was administered to the non-tested ear at a level 30 dB lower than the stimulus level to prevent cross-over of signals.
Therefore, to guarantee complete elimination of the auditory response, masking sound must be used in addition to hearing protection (Fuggetta et al. 2005; Paus et al. 2001).
Each session featured a different soundscape in the background: office sounds muffled by white noise, office sounds masked with the sound of "flowing water in a mountain stream," and office sounds with no masking noise.
Some of the participants heard loud ambient sounds in the headphones, which masked the sound of chomping on the pretzels.
