Auditory masking-level differences in the cat.

Four cats were trained to avoid shock by responding to the intermittent occurrence of 1-kHz tone pulses at one ear, while a continual train of noise pulses was simultaneously presented either to the signal ear alone or to both ears. Using the masked threshold levels determined with monaural noise as a reference, the amount of unmasking produced by the addition of noise to the nonsignal ear was measured. Significantly lower tonal detection thresholds were observed when noise equal in intensity to that at the signal ear was added to the nonsignal ear. Additional unmasking occurred when the intensity of the noise at the latter ear was raised to a level 10 db. higher than that at the signal ear.