The precedence effect: no evidence for an "active" release process found.

Hafter et al. [Auditory Function: The Neurobiological Bases for Hearing (Wiley, New York, 1988)] have reported that "post-onset adaptation," as measured with trains of high-frequency clicks in a lateralization paradigm, can instantly be released by presentation of an additional, short trigger signal, which is spectrally different from the click trains. As post-onset saturation may be one of the psychoacoustic components of the precedence effect, it has been investigated whether suitable trigger signals might also induce a release from echo inhibition. However, no evidence for such an "active" release process could be observed in a number of exploratory precedence-effect settings.