Auditory temporal masking: an electrophysiological study of single neurons in the cat's cochlear nucleus and inferior colliculus

Watanabe, Simada · The Japanese Journal of Physiology · 1971 · auditory-neurophysiology · 10.2170/jjphysiol.21.537 · record watanabe1971-auditory-temporal-masking-an-elect
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית
Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. PDF extraction is heavily scrambled in the Summary paragraph and in figure captions (word order transposed, 'ƒ¢t'/'(cid:129)¢t' for Δt), so all quotes were taken from clean, intact sentences in Methods, Results and Discussion. The paper also contains a null-result component (no backward masking at the cochlear nucleus: 'Quotation withheld'), but the overall shape of the contribution is mechanistic, so claim type is mechanism. The third limitation quote deliberately stops before a page-break header ('which seems to TEMPORAL MASKING 549 be difficult to demonstrate at present') so it remains an exact substring. STARR (1965) is cited in the Discussion but the paper does not state a relation of its own claims to that work, so no relation was recorded for it. Replication status is 'untested' because the paper reports no replication of its own neural findings; the correspondence with Elliott's and Pickett's psychophysical curves is cross-method convergence, not replication. 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
Some quotes on this page contain (cid:NN). The PDF this text was extracted from encodes 3 characters in a way that names no letter, so the extractor could not say what they were. The quotes keep them because a quote is reproduced exactly or it proves nothing — the marks are the source’s, not the tagging’s.
How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 4 concept tags on this paper, all 4 are grounded in a quoted sentence. All carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.
simultaneous masking temporal masking backward masking cochlear nucleus A faint probe tone drives an abnormally long response latency in collicular neurons, so the probe's discharge arrives at or after the discharge evoked by the following noise burst and is absorbed into it, which produces backward masking "off" type neuron masking interval amount of masking stimulus intensity in dB histogram stimulus time (PST) histograms electrophysiology

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relation to other workclaim_relationshow this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tagcontent_tagsa finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
controlcontrolsan experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.2170/jjphysiol.21.537. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 2 · claim_type 1 · concepts 4 · content_tags 15 · controls 2 · limitations 3 · mechanisms 1 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 3

This record holds no relations between concepts. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.

facettagfieldconf.whose words
claim_typemechanism
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenonauditory temporal masking
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodelectrophysiology
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methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
mechanisms[0]the tagger's words
limitationsOnly a small number of collicular units showed backward masking, so the effect rests on few cells.
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
limitations[0]the tagger's words
limitationsRecordings were made under anesthesia and restraint; the authors say further work in unanesthetized, unrestrained animals is needed for the higher auditory centres.
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limitations[1]the tagger's words
limitationsA possible fourth mechanism (feedback inhibition from higher levels) could not be demonstrated with the present methods.
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limitations[2]the tagger's words
controlsboth stimulus conditions held constant while the masking measurement was made
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
eliminates: a change in the stimulus itself explaining the change in masking · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[0]0.85the tagger's words
controlsmasking measured as the difference in probe-tone threshold with and without the noise burst, at each delay
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
eliminates: the probe threshold itself drifting - the with/without difference at the same delay cancels anything common to both · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held
controls[1]0.85the tagger's words
conceptssimultaneous masking
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[0]0.95the paper's words
conceptstemporal masking
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
concepts[1]0.95the paper's words
conceptsbackward masking
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concepts[2]0.95the paper's words
conceptscochlear nucleus
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concepts[3]0.95the paper's words
sensesTHE DISTINCTION IS PSYCHOLOGICAL AND THE ARGUMENT IS ANATOMICAL. `From the psychological point of view two kinds of auditory masking are known, that is, simultaneous and temporal masking` - a split made by psychophysics, which this paper then tests by asking where in the cat's auditory pathway each one appears. A behavioural taxonomy checked against anatomy, which is the move Carlesimo2004 makes for priming thirty-three years later and mcmahon-olson2007 makes for repetition suppression
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senses[0]0.95the tagger's words
sensesAND THE LOCATION IS ESTABLISHED BY AN ABSENCE: `Quotation withheld` Nothing was found at the first relay, therefore the mechanism is above it. A null result at one recording site doing positive work - which only holds because the same preparation DID show forward masking there, so the absence is not a failure of the method
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senses[1]0.95the tagger's words
sensesIT IS THE PHYSIOLOGY OF marcel1983's INSTRUMENT, AND NEITHER CITES THE OTHER. marcel1983 uses backward masking to render a prime unreportable and shows that semantic access survives it; this paper, twelve years earlier and in cats, asks WHERE backward masking happens and answers `not in the cochlear nucleus`. One paper uses the tool, the other locates it. The corpus holds both, and the pairing is only visible because they sit side by side - the sixth such pair found tonight
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senses[2]0.85the tagger's words
claim_relationsbuilds-on → ELLIOT (1962a)
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claim_relations[0]the tagger's words
claim_relationsextends → ELLIOTT (1962a, b) and PICKETT (1959)
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claim_relations[1]the tagger's words
content_tagshistogram
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also in: histogram
content_tags.statistics[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsForward masking weakened as the interval between the noise burst and the probe tone grew at both recording sites, but the decline was more abrupt in the inferior colliculus than in the cochlear nucleus.
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content_tags.findings[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsBackward masking in the inferior colliculus took three forms: "on" neurons with a long latency to the probe tone (6 units), neurons inhibited by the noise burst (3 units), and "off" neurons (2 units).
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content_tags.findings[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsA unit produced backward masking only when its latency to the probe tone exceeded the 20 msec at which the noise burst's own response arrived, so units responding within 20 msec showed none.
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content_tags.findings[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsThe single-neuron curves relating amount of masking to masking interval followed the same trends as the published psychophysical masking data of Elliott and Pickett, although individual neurons differed from one another.
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content_tags.findings[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsOnly a small proportion of inferior collicular units showed backward masking at all.
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content_tags.findings[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsFast-adapting neurons form the overwhelming majority of neurons in the inferior colliculus.
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content_tags.findings[5]the tagger's words
content_tags"off" type neuron
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.definitions[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsmasking interval
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.variables[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsamount of masking
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.variables[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsstimulus intensity in dB
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.variables[2]the tagger's words
content_tags36 — number of inferior collicular neurons tested for backward masking, of which 11 showed it in three modes
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.quantities[0]the tagger's words
content_tags6 units; 3 units; 2 units — how the 11 backward-masking units divided across the long-latency "on", noise-inhibited, and "off" modes
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content_tags.quantities[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsmore than 20msec / 10msec — the unit's response latency to the probe tone inside the backward-masking region versus its latency to the noise burst
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content_tags.quantities[2]the tagger's words
content_tags14.5msec at-30dB — measured response latency at 3,500 Hz at the highest of four tested intensities, the shortest of the reported latency shifts
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content_tags.quantities[3]the tagger's words

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