Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Hearing

Hearing

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...

Auditory Pathway

Auditory Pathway

Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking the...

Perception of Sound Waves

Perception of Sound Waves

The human ear is not equally sensitive to all frequencies in the audible range. It may perceive sound waves with the same pressure but different frequencies as having different loudness. Moreover, the perception of sound waves depends on the health of an individual's ears, which decays with age. The health of one's ears may also be affected by regular exposure to loud noises.
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same frequency...

Auditory Perception

Auditory Perception

The auditory system is essential for sound perception, utilizing various critical structures. When sound waves enter the outer ear, they travel through the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. These vibrations are then transmitted to the middle ear, where three tiny bones – the malleus, incus, and stapes – amplify the sound. This amplification is crucial, as it ensures that the sound vibrations are strong enough to be conveyed to the inner ear. These vibrations then reach the cochlea, a...

The Cochlea

The Cochlea

The cochlea is a coiled structure in the inner ear that contains hair cells—the sensory receptors of the auditory system. Sound waves are transmitted to the cochlea by small bones attached to the eardrum called the ossicles, which vibrate the oval window that leads to the inner ear. This causes fluid in the chambers of the cochlea to move, vibrating the basilar membrane.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Cochlear aging after synaptopathic noise: age-noise interactions in hair cell loss and axonal degeneration.

Hearing research·2026

Same author

Acoustic Scene-Aware Processing and Auditory Model-Based Compensation Strategies.

Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology : JARO·2026

Same author

Using more realistic speech material to enhance ecological validity in the Everyday Conversational Danish Sentence Test.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026

Same author

Phoneme Perception in Children With Bilateral Cochlear Implants or Hearing Aids in Quiet, Noise, and Reverberation.

Ear and hearing·2026

Same author

A comparison of hearing abilities in memory clinic patients with mild cognitive impairment and cognitively intact older adults.

Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD·2026

Same author

Investigating the impact of background noise on collaborative decision-making using an individual-weighted voting model.

Cognitive research: principles and implications·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 3, 2026

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

Published on: October 29, 2018

A computational model of human auditory signal processing and perception.

Morten L Jepsen¹, Stephan D Ewert, Torsten Dau

¹Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Acoustic Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

|July 24, 2008

Summary

This study presents an improved computational auditory model that better explains simultaneous and nonsimultaneous masking. The enhanced model accurately predicts human listener data across various auditory processing conditions.

More Related Videos

A Lightweight, Headphones-based System for Manipulating Auditory Feedback in Songbirds

A Lightweight, Headphones-based System for Manipulating Auditory Feedback in Songbirds

Published on: November 26, 2012

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 3, 2026

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

Published on: October 29, 2018

A Lightweight, Headphones-based System for Manipulating Auditory Feedback in Songbirds

A Lightweight, Headphones-based System for Manipulating Auditory Feedback in Songbirds

Published on: November 26, 2012

Area of Science:

Auditory Neuroscience
Computational Auditory Processing
Psychoacoustics

Background:

Simultaneous and nonsimultaneous masking are key phenomena in auditory perception.
Existing computational models have limitations in fully explaining these masking effects.
Understanding auditory processing is crucial for developing advanced hearing technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

To present a novel computational model of auditory signal processing and perception.
To account for simultaneous and nonsimultaneous masking in human listeners.
To improve upon the existing modulation filterbank model.

Main Methods:

The model incorporates outer/middle-ear transformations, nonlinear basilar membrane processing, and hair-cell transduction.
It includes a squaring expansion, adaptation stage, and a 150-Hz lowpass modulation filter.
A bandpass modulation filterbank, internal noise, and optimal detector are utilized for signal analysis.

Main Results:

The model was evaluated against experimental data including intensity discrimination, tone-in-noise detection, and spectral/temporal masking.
It successfully accounted for key properties of human listener data across diverse conditions.
The enhanced model demonstrated greater power and accuracy compared to its predecessor.

Conclusions:

The developed computational model provides a robust framework for understanding auditory masking.
It offers improved predictions of human auditory perception, particularly concerning spectral and temporal resolution.
The model shows potential as a front-end processing component in various technical applications.