Impact of uncertainty on sound perception

In the auditory study, masking caused by sound uncertainty is a hot topic because research on this topic has a potential to be applied to improve human perception in a real world. This article introduces the origination of the study on this so-called informational masking and lists some key results obtained. The informational masking is widely accepted to result from the central auditory system since the classical auditory peripheral model fails to account for the data. This article reviewed the currently most satisfactory model on informational masking and its ability and disability in accounting for current experimental data. In the end, potential sources of the informational masking are discussed as an indication for the future research direction. The review is mostly based on articles published in JASA and JARO, the two most prestigious journals in the auditory study.