Some notes on frequency discrimination and masking

In order to study frequency discrimination near and at the threshold of masking, a paradigm was used which permitted frequency discrimination and detection of noise-embedded sinusoids to be measured in one experiment. The just noticeable difference in frequency at the threshold of detection was found to be DELTA f double prime approximately equals 16 Hz with durations of the sinusoid of DELTA t equals 64 ms and with DELTA t equals 256 ms. With DELTA t equals 16 ms, DELTA f double prime approximately equals 64 Hz. The frequency of the sinusoids was 1000 Hz in all experiments. The possible implications for a place theory and a periodicity theory of pitch perception are mentioned.