Question

Imagine you're a psychoacoustician investigating loudness perception. You present a subject with a 1500 Hz tone and find an absolute threshold of 5 dB. Which manipulation would reduce the threshold of the 1500 Hz tone?

1) Increasing the amplitude of the 1500 Hz tone
2) Decreasing the amplitude of the 1500 Hz tone
3)hanging the frequency of the 1500 Hz tone
4) Adding white noise to the 1500 Hz tone

Answer 1

The manipulation would reduce the detection threshold of a 1500 Hz tone is increasing the amplitude of the tone (Option 1).

Step-by-step explanation:

If you're a psychoacoustician investigating loudness perception, you have found that the absolute threshold for a 1500 Hz tone is 5 dB. To reduce the threshold of the 1500 Hz tone, you would choose to increase the amplitude of the 1500 Hz tone. Increasing amplitude effectively makes the sound louder, which would lower the threshold level at which the sound could be detected by a listener.

On the contrary, decreasing the amplitude would make the sound quieter and would not reduce the threshold. Changing the frequency might affect loudness perception, but it would not reduce the threshold of the 1500 Hz tone itself. Adding white noise would typically mask the tone, making it harder to detect, and thus would not reduce its threshold.

Thus, the correct answer is option 1.