The masking noise and its effect upon the human cortical evokes potential

Abstract

Using both while noise and narrow-band noise as monaural stimuli, the human cortical evoked potential was recorded with different intensties of stimuli. With such stimuli, the N₁ peak of the response was prolonged in comparison to the response to the onset of a pure tone.

The effect of simultaneously stimulating one ear with a burst of pure tone and the other with noise such as might be used for masking the contralateral ear was also studied. In this situation the N₁ peak in response to the tone usually showed the amplitude that was to be expected if only the pure tone had been given without contralateral masking. The response to pure tones of various intensity levels in the presence of contralateral noise at a steady intensity was also measured.

Key Words:

• Auditory masking
• ERA masking
• Binaural stimulation