Abstract
In order to learn more about the processing of auditory information, simple reaction time (RT) measurements were made when subjects were asked to respond to tones presented against a tonal background. In the first experiment, a counterintuitive result was obtained: with two widely separated frequencies, 1,900 and 4,000 Hz, the presence of the background facilitated RT. In a second experiment, using two frequencies which were closer together (3,500 and 4,000 Hz), slowing of RT in the presence of the background was observed, as would be expected from the literature on auditory masking. A third experiment suggested that the information carried by signal offset is not an important factor in the facilitation observed with widely separated tones. In this experiment an unexpected result was found: subjects receiving offsets in their right ears responded significantly more slowly than did subjects receiving offsets in their left ears.
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Emmerich, D.S., Pitchford, L.J. & Becker, C.A. Reaction time to tones in tonal backgrounds and a comparison of reaction time to signal onset and offset. Perception & Psychophysics 20, 210–214 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198603
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198603