Process / pipelinePsychoacoustics, Auditory perception

Psychoacoustic Masking

Psychoacoustic masking describes how the human auditory system suppresses the perception of weak sounds in the presence of stronger sounds. Formalized by Eberhard Zwicker in the 1960s, masking is a fundamental phenomenon in hearing and the basis for perceptual audio coding (MP3, AAC, OPUS). Masking occurs both in frequency (spectral masking) and time (temporal masking), and understanding these effects enables efficient audio compression and realistic sound design.

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Sources

  1. Zwicker, E., & Scharf, B. (1965). Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models. Springer-Verlag. ISBN: 978-3540631644
  2. Moore, B. C. J. (2012). An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing (6th ed.). Academic Press. ISBN: 978-0123914232
  3. Johnston, J. D. (1988). Transform coding of audio signals using perceptual noise criteria. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 6(2), 314–323. DOI: 10.1109/49.608

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Referenced by

ScholarGatePsychoacoustic Masking (Psychoacoustic Masking Models for Audio Perception). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/acoustics/psychoacoustic-masking