Abstract
It is known that a burst of tone in noise is easier to detect than an equal duration gap in the same tone. A theory of temporal summation (Irwin & Kemp, 1976) predicts that the difference in detectability should decrease if the duration of the events is increased. A forced-choice experiment was performed with two durations (25 and 200 msec) and E/n0 held constant at 15 for bursts and 30 for gaps. As predicted, results showed shorter duration events to differ more in detectability than longer ones.
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I am grateful to R. J. Irwin for useful discussion on an earlier version of the paper. The research was partially funded by the New Zealand University Grants Committee, and the experiment performed at the University of Auckland.
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Kemp, S. The effect of duration on the relative detectability of brief tonal bursts and gaps in the tone. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 23, 497–499 (1985). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329864
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329864