Temporal masking characteristics of whole body vibration perception

Most of daily life's signals vary with time. Vibrations in moving vehicles or music are typical examples. Signals that are in close temporal proximity interfere with the perception of each other, which is known as temporal masking. This study evaluates the effects of temporal masking for vertical whole body vibrations (WBV). Forward vs backward masking is tested, as well as the effect of the duration of the interval between masker and target, and the duration of the target on forward masking. Temporal masking was measured for a 1000 ms masker at 40 Hz, using eight different interstimulus-intervals (ISI) ranging from 20 ms to 520 ms with two different target durations of 200 ms and 400 ms at 40 Hz. Additionally on- and off-frequency conditions have been tested. The results of forward masking measurement with 20 subjects verify that temporal masking for WBV decreases with increasing ISI as well as with increasing target duration. Off-frequency masking is not as strong as on-frequency masking. These findings are interesting in the context of comfort evaluation in the automotive industry as well as for the design of multi-modal virtual environments.