A couple of years ago, when I was living in the city, I used to ride the bus to work. My destination was one station beyond the city´s primary bus station - Vasaplan. When the bus arrived at Vasaplan, the driver turned off the engine and waited for a couple of minutes before continuing the route. Sometimes, there were people talking with each other or on their phones, but you could usually never hear them in the noisy bus. But as soon as the engine sound vanished, the environment got quiet and you could instantly hear every word in the nearby conversation. And as soon as the bus continued its route, the background noise came back and consequently the conversation became inaudible. This is a perfect example of a phenomenon called “sound masking”.
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