Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Apr;129(4):2088-94. doi: 10.1121/1.3552880.
The enhancement effect is consistently shown when simultaneously masked stimuli are preceded by the masker alone, with a reduction in the amount of masking relative to when that precursor is absent. One explanation for this effect proposed by Viemeister and Bacon [(1982). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 71, 1502-1507] is the adaptation of inhibition, which predicts that an enhanced component (the "target") will be effectively more intense within the auditory system than one that has not been enhanced. Forward masking studies have indicated this effect of increased gain; however, other explanations of the enhancement effect have also been suggested. In order to provide an alternative measure of the amount of effective gain for an enhanced target, a subjective binaural centering task was used in which listeners matched the intensities of enhanced and unenhanced 2-kHz tones presented to opposite ears to produce a centered stimulus. The results showed that the enhancement effect produces an effective 4-5 dB increase in the level of the enhanced target. The enhancement effect was also measured using other enhancement paradigms which yielded similar results over a range of levels for the target, supporting an account based on adaptation of inhibition.
当同时呈现的掩蔽刺激物之前只有掩蔽物时，会一直显示出增强效果，与没有该前导物时相比，掩蔽量会减少。Viemeister 和 Bacon [(1982). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 71, 1502-1507] 提出的这种效应的一种解释是抑制适应，它预测增强的成分（“目标”）在听觉系统中的强度将比未增强的成分更高。前向掩蔽研究表明了这种增益增加的效果；然而，也提出了其他对增强效应的解释。为了提供增强目标的有效增益量的替代测量方法，使用了主观双耳居中任务，其中听众将增强和未增强的 2 kHz 音调的强度匹配到对侧耳朵，以产生居中的刺激。结果表明，增强效应会使增强目标的水平有效增加 4-5 dB。还使用了其他增强范式来测量增强效应，这些范式在目标的一系列水平上产生了类似的结果，支持基于抑制适应的解释。
