Auditory masking is often observed in everyday life: While walking on a street a passing truck can disrupt our conversation. Likewise, one would not want a cell phone to ring in quiet parts of a classical concert but it might not even be heard in a loud rock-concert. Components of one sound interact with components of another sound similar in frequency and time and render them inaudible. This is referred to as masking. Partial masking can also occur: Components are not inaudible, but their loudness is reduced (c.f. Chapter 18). This chapter first introduces the frequent case of masking by one tone on another for simultaneous and successive presentation.
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Seeber, B.U. (2008). Masking and Critical Bands. In: Havelock, D., Kuwano, S., Vorländer, M. (eds) Handbook of Signal Processing in Acoustics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30441-0_16
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