Why does the human auditory system struggle more to identify a brief sound presented immediately after a longer, louder sound, even if the brief sound contains new information?

💡 Explanation

Auditory masking makes the brief sound harder to perceive because the louder sound's neural representation persists and interferes with the processing of the subsequent, weaker sound, therefore masking the new input rather than the alternatives, which involve signal enhancement under different timing conditions.

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