Weisenberger J M
Department of Speech and hearing Science, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210.
J Acoust Soc Am. 1994 Apr;95(4):2213-20. doi: 10.1121/1.408681.
Previous investigations of temporal masking effects in vibrotactile detection tasks have generally produced results suggesting considerable similarities in stimulus processing between the tactile system and the auditory system. Auditory presentation of combinations of maskers (e.g., two forward maskers) has yielded masking effects in excess of the level of masking predicted by a simple intensity sum of each masker's individual effect. This "additional masking" has led to predictions of compressive nonlinearities in auditory stimulus processing. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to investigate further temporal masking phenomena for the tactile system. In the first experiment vibrotactile temporal masking functions for single forward and backward maskers were generated to examine trade-offs among values of masker duration, masking intensity, and interstimulus interval to maintain constant detectability of a target. Results suggested that stimuli in very close temporal proximity to the target might follow somewhat different trading equations from those farther removed. Overall, results were consistent with previous findings of temporal integration in the tactile system, and support the notion of an energy integrating mechanism. In the second experiment, pairs of maskers were presented to determine whether additional masking effects occurred in vibrotactile detection. In contrast to findings for auditory presentation, in which all masker configurations generated additional masking, the tactile results showed substantial amounts of additional masking only for pairs of backward maskers. Several possible explanations for this results are evaluated, and results are discussed in terms of similarities and dissimilarities in auditory and tactile temporal processing.
先前对振动触觉检测任务中的时间掩蔽效应的研究通常得出的结果表明，触觉系统和听觉系统在刺激处理方面存在相当大的相似性。掩蔽音组合（例如，两个前掩蔽音）的听觉呈现产生的掩蔽效应超过了每个掩蔽音单独效应的简单强度总和所预测的掩蔽水平。这种“额外掩蔽”导致了对听觉刺激处理中压缩非线性的预测。在本研究中，进行了两个实验以进一步研究触觉系统的时间掩蔽现象。在第一个实验中，生成了单个前掩蔽音和后掩蔽音的振动触觉时间掩蔽函数，以检查掩蔽音持续时间、掩蔽强度和刺激间隔值之间的权衡，以保持目标的恒定可检测性。结果表明，与目标在时间上非常接近的刺激可能遵循与距离较远的刺激略有不同的权衡方程。总体而言，结果与触觉系统中先前的时间整合研究结果一致，并支持能量整合机制的概念。在第二个实验中，呈现了成对的掩蔽音，以确定在振动触觉检测中是否会出现额外的掩蔽效应。与听觉呈现的结果相反，在听觉呈现中所有掩蔽音配置都会产生额外掩蔽，而触觉结果表明，只有成对的后掩蔽音才会出现大量额外掩蔽。对这一结果的几种可能解释进行了评估，并根据听觉和触觉时间处理的异同对结果进行了讨论。
