Temporary Threshold Shift and Masking for Noise of Uniform Spectrum Level

This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that differences in the effective noise level from one critical band to the next can account for the typical audiogram showing the temporary threshold shift which results from an exposure to noise of uniform spectrum level. For equal masking, or (B+K 0), the greatest losses were found at the highest frequencies and the smallest losses at the lowest frequencies. However, the hypothesis implied that for equal masking all frequencies would show equal losses. Further analysis revealed that when the data for temporary threshold shift were plotted against the quantity (-B+2.7K 0), the points for all test-tone frequencies fell on a common curve.