Forward masking of spectrotemporal modulation detection.

Recent work has suggested that there may be specialized mechanisms in the auditory system for coding spectrotemporal modulations (STMs), tuned to different combinations of spectral modulation frequency, temporal modulation frequency, and STM sweep direction. The current study sought evidence of such mechanisms using a psychophysical forward masking paradigm. The detectability of a target comprising upward sweeping STMs was measured following the presentation of modulated maskers applied to the same carrier. Four maskers were tested, which had either (1) the same spectral modulation frequency as the target but a flat temporal envelope, (2) the same temporal modulation frequency as the target but a flat spectral envelope, (3) the same spectral and temporal modulation frequencies as the target but the opposite sweep direction (downward sweeping STMs), or (4) the same spectral and temporal modulation frequencies as the target and the same sweep direction (upward sweeping STMs). Forward masking was greatest for the masker fully matched to the target (4), intermediate for the masker with the opposite sweep direction (3), and negligible for the other two (1, 2). These findings are consistent with the suggestion that the detectability of the target was mediated by an STM-specific coding mechanism with sweep-direction selectivity.