COMPARISON OF MONAURAL (CMR) AND BINAURAL (BMLD) MASKING RELEASE

Release of masking for a sinusoidal signal of 5 kHz masked by a 25-Hz- wide noise band centered around 5 kHz was measured. The masking releas e was provided by a second noise band that was comodulated with the on -frequency masker band. For CMR configurations the second noise band w as centered at 3 kHz and presented to the ipsi-lateral or to the contr a-lateral ear. For BMLD configurations the second band was centered at 5 kHz and presented to the contra-lateral ear. In another condition t he second noise band also contained the signal presented with such a p hase that maximal differences in the envelope resulted. For both the C MR and the BMLD paradigm, the masking release for the latter condition was larger than for the former condition. To assess further the simil arity between monaural and binaural masking release, a sinusoidal mask er and either a noise or a sinusoidal signal were used. The data indic ate that, at high frequencies, envelope correlation may be a valuable cue for CMR as well as for the BMLD. (C) 1998 Acoustical Society of Am erica.