Temporal Integration of Auditory Signals for Various Binaural Phase Conditions

The effect of signal duration on various binaural phase conditions, is currently a controversial topic in psychoacoustics, especially for durations less than 20 ms. The present study utilized the masking-level difference paradigm (SqNq , S^Ng, and SoN>r) to investigate the temporal integration of energy for 2to 100-ms, 500-Hz tones in 30.7 dB pressure-spectrum level, continuous broadband noise. The data from the two sujects suggested that the signal durations at which the measured thresholds increased by more than predicted by perfect power summation were different among the SgNg , S-N0 , and SqNtt conditions. In general, the masking-level differences, reflecting the differential temporal integration for the three conditions, were largest for 6to 10-ms signals, and were smallest at the extremes of the signal duration continuum. Estimates of the critical bandwidths for SgNg, S^Ng, and SoNit suggest that different critical bandwidths may exist for the three listening conditions.