Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Hearing01:31

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.
Auditory Pathway01:15

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...
Auditory Perception01:17

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...
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location01:21

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...
The Cochlea01:13

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.
Perception of Sound Waves01:01

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...

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by
Same author

Reduced task-induced frontal midline theta activity in chronic stroke patients compared to healthy older adults - An MEG study.

NeuroImage. Clinical·2026
Same author

Oscillatory and gaze signatures of socio-emotional speech processing, visuo-spatial cognition, and their interaction in a near-realistic dual-task MEG study.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same author

Low intensity transcranial electric stimulation: Safety, ethical, legal regulatory and application guidelines (2017-2025: An update) - endorsed by the European Society for Brain Stimulation (ESBS) and by the International Federation for Clinical Neurophysiology (IFCN).

Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology·2026
Same author

Chronotype in alpha-tACS: Preliminary evidence hints at sleep quality modulation of aftereffects in evening types in the morning.

Neurobiology of sleep and circadian rhythms·2025
Same author

Neuromodulatory Effects of Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Neurology international·2025
Same author

Brain reorganization: altered functional connectivity in reward network after stroke.

NeuroImage. Clinical·2025
Same journal

Diffusion-Informed Joint Segmentation Enhances Detection of Thalamic Atrophy in Parkinson's Disease.

Brain topography·2026
Same journal

Local Field Potential Recordings Using Deep Brain Stimulation: A Practical Workflow and Open-Source Signal Processing Pipeline.

Brain topography·2026
Same journal

Electrocortical Indices of Default Mode Network-Related Activity in ADHD and Modulation Through Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

Brain topography·2026
Same journal

Electroencephalogram for the Diagnosis of Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Diagnostic Test Accuracy.

Brain topography·2026
Same journal

Mapping Whole-Brain Nonlinear Structure-Function Dynamics in Aging via Neural Granger Causality.

Brain topography·2026
Same journal

Association Between Spatiotemporal Properties of Global Brain Activity and Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Evidence from Microstate C.

Brain topography·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
06:34

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Pre-attentive spectro-temporal feature processing in the human auditory system.

Tino Zaehle1, Lutz Jancke, Christoph S Herrmann

  • 1Department of Biological Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany. tino.zaehle@ovgu.de

Brain Topography
|March 7, 2009
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study reveals distinct brain lateralization for processing sound features. Temporal sound deviations activate the left hemisphere, while spectral deviations activate the right hemisphere, impacting auditory perception.

More Related Videos

A Method for Tracking the Time Evolution of Steady-State Evoked Potentials
12:03

A Method for Tracking the Time Evolution of Steady-State Evoked Potentials

Published on: May 25, 2019

Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
09:38

Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities

Published on: January 29, 2014

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
06:34

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

A Method for Tracking the Time Evolution of Steady-State Evoked Potentials
12:03

A Method for Tracking the Time Evolution of Steady-State Evoked Potentials

Published on: May 25, 2019

Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
09:38

Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities

Published on: January 29, 2014

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Auditory Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

  • The human auditory system exhibits functional lateralization, but the specific roles of low-level acoustic feature processing in this lateralization remain debated.
  • Pre-attentive auditory processing, measurable via mismatch negativity (MMN), offers insights into early sensory discrimination.
  • Understanding how the brain processes spectral and temporal acoustic properties is crucial for auditory and speech processing models.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the pre-attentive processing of spectral and temporal acoustic properties in the human auditory system.
  • To examine the impact of these low-level acoustic features on functional lateralization.
  • To test the hypothesis of left-lateralized MMN sources for temporal deviants and right-lateralized sources for spectral deviants.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically mismatch negativity (MMN), were recorded from 19 adult participants.
  • Participants passively listened to standard auditory stimuli and spectrally and temporally deviant sounds.
  • Source localization using LORETA (Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography) was employed to determine MMN generation sites.

Main Results:

  • Robust MMNs were observed in response to both spectrally and temporally deviant sounds, modulated by the degree of deviation.
  • MMN amplitudes varied with the grade of spectral and temporal deviation, indicating sensitivity to acoustic feature changes.
  • LORETA analysis revealed right-hemisphere dominance for spectral processing and left-hemisphere dominance for temporal processing.

Conclusions:

  • Pre-attentive processing of spectral and temporal acoustic features is lateralized in the human auditory system.
  • Distinct neural subsystems mediate the processing of temporal versus spectral information at a pre-attentive level.
  • These findings contribute to understanding the neural basis of auditory perception and hemispheric specialization in auditory and speech processing.