Incremental responses in the auditory cortex and the auditory nerve: A comparison

When probe tones are added to background sounds, the psychophysical detectability and the perception of the probe is influenced by the time delay from the onset of the background to the onset of the probe. In general, the shorter the time delay, the harder it is to detect the probe or to perceive the probe as a separate signal. This results, for example, in psychophysical overshoot phenomena in which the amount of masking decreases as time delay increases [4]. Purpose of this study was to reveal magnetoencephalographic correlates of these psychophysical phenomena and to compare cortical responses with those of the auditory nerve.