We numerically study the artificial spectral-filtering effect in dissipative soliton fiber lasers without intracavity spectral filters. It is found that in dissipative soliton lasers with real saturable absorbers （SAs）, the dynamic spectral filtering of the real SAs serves as an artificial spectral filter and contributes to the pulse shaping. While in the dissi- pative soliton lasers with artificiM SAs, such as nonlinear polarization rotation, the spectrM filtering introduced by the intracavity polarization-dependent components acts as an artificial spectral filter and shapes the pulses to obtain mode- locking. An investigation of the artificial spectral-filtering effect reveals the operating mechanisms of the dissipative soliton fiber lasers without visible bandpass filters.
