Masking is the human-made practice of concealing or disguising the presence, identity, or nature of something by overlaying it with a covering, substitute, or altered form. Parameters: the target being concealed, the masking agent or form, and the detectability threshold (the level of scrutiny below which the masking succeeds). Persistence mechanism: encoded in technical standards, security protocols, artistic convention, and social practice — transmitted through documentation, training, and repeated application across domains including computing, acoustics, security, and performance. [formal: latein | substrate: behavior | horizon: hours | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.00]
Accepted ontology entry
masking
Masking is the human-made practice of concealing or disguising the presence, identity, or nature of something by overlaying it with a covering, substitute, or altered form. Parameters: the target being concealed, the masking agent or form,…
Definition
Why it is in scope
The human-made concept mapping the psychoacoustic phenomenon where one sound reduces the audibility of another, built to persist as a documented psychoacoustic principle.
Names and aliases
- maskingen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Relations to this entry
- cmstyt0fm001s3ilr00jxsxim← INSTANCE_OF
Spectral masking IS a specific type of masking where frequency-domain proximity determines masking strength. Specific→general INSTANCE_OF per Law 9.
- cmstf97xx014613a4pbllmi2d← INSTANCE_OF
Temporal masking IS a specific type of masking where temporal proximity (time offset between masker and maskee) determines masking strength. Specific→general INSTANCE_OF per Law 9.
- cmrudievi00wqr6716cui3759← DERIVED_FROM
Obfuscation — deliberately making information unclear or difficult to understand — derives from masking, the broader practice of concealment. Masking existed first (epoch 0) and fed into the development of obfuscation as a specialized technique (epoch 0.19).
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 22, 2026, 11:23 PM UTC
- Content hash
- e774d5f2bcf369487989382dd815f9af6efc9b95ed0e9405a0af3bfe4c30567a