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...
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...
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...
Sound Intensity Level00:53

Sound Intensity Level

Humans perceive sound by hearing. The human ear helps sound waves reach the brain, which then interprets the waves and creates the perception of hearing. The loudness of the environment in which a person is located determines whether they can distinguish between different sound sources.
The human ear can perceive an extensive range of sound intensity, necessitating the use of the logarithmic scale to define a physical quantity—the intensity level. It is a ratio of two intensities and hence a...
What are Estimates?01:06

What are Estimates?

It isn't easy to measure a parameter such as the mean height or the mean weight of a population. So, we draw samples from the population and calculate the mean height or mean weight of the individuals in the sample. This sample data acts as a representative measure of the population parameter. These sample statistics are known as estimates. 
The estimate for the mean of a sample is denoted by ͞x, whereas the mean of the population is designated as μ. Further, parameters such as the mean,...

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by
Same author

Higher Mortality After Cardiac Surgery is Observed in Cohort from Disadvantaged Neighborhoods.

Pediatric cardiology·2026
Same author

Double dissociation of the effects of volitional control on perceptual selection and maintenance in multistable visual perception.

Journal of vision·2026
Same author

Prenatal maternal psychological distress is associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes in toddlers with congenital heart disease.

Pediatric research·2026
Same author

Continuity fields enhance visual perception through positive serial dependence.

Nature reviews psychology·2026
Same author

Developing Topics.

Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association·2025
Same author

Listeners Systematically Integrate Hierarchical Tonal Context, Regardless of Musical Training.

Psychological science·2025
Same journal

A Field Experiment Testing Whether Accountability Reduces Racial Gaps in Performance Evaluations.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Does Testosterone Affect Cognitive Reflection? Evidence From a Double-Blind, Randomized Controlled Study of 1,000 Participants.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Does Overconfidence Really Confer Adaptive Benefits to Children's Learning?

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

How Does the Mind Grow? Cross-Cultural Intuitive Theories of Mental Development.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Not All Practice Is Created Equal: Longitudinal Evidence From Over 40,000 Chess Players.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Eye Glint as a Novel Perceptual Cue in Human Vision.

Psychological science·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 10, 2026

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization (USV) Songs
08:44

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization (USV) Songs

Published on: May 9, 2017

Humans use summary statistics to perceive auditory sequences.

Elise A Piazza1, Timothy D Sweeny, David Wessel

  • 1Vision Science Program, University of California, Berkeley 94720-2020, USA. epiazza@berkeley.edu

Psychological Science
|June 14, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Humans can estimate the average frequency of sounds using ensemble coding, similar to how they perceive visual information. This auditory processing relies on a large number of sounds, not individual ones.

Keywords:
auditory perceptionensemble codingfrequencyperceptionstatistical summaryvisual perception

More Related Videos

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons
07:13

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons

Published on: November 9, 2018

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 10, 2026

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization (USV) Songs
08:44

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization (USV) Songs

Published on: May 9, 2017

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons
07:13

A Two-interval Forced-choice Task for Multisensory Comparisons

Published on: November 9, 2018

Area of Science:

  • Auditory Neuroscience
  • Perceptual Psychology
  • Signal Processing

Background:

  • Humans efficiently process visual information using summary statistics, like the average facial expression in a crowd.
  • Ensemble coding, the processing of group-level statistical information, is well-established in visual perception.
  • Its role in auditory processing, particularly for sequential sounds, remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To provide direct evidence for ensemble coding in auditory processing.
  • To investigate the mechanism of extracting ensemble frequency information from sound sequences.
  • To determine the contribution of individual tones versus the overall sequence to auditory ensemble perception.

Main Methods:

  • Experiment 1: Listeners estimated the mean frequency of logarithmically spaced pure tones in temporal sequences.
  • Experiment 2: Performance was assessed when only subsets of tones were presented.
  • Experiments 3 & 4: Listeners' ability to identify individual tones and their positions within sequences was tested.

Main Results:

  • Listeners accurately estimated the mean frequency of complete tone sequences.
  • Performance significantly decreased when presented with only a subset of tones.
  • Listeners demonstrated poor ability to identify individual tones or their sequence positions.

Conclusions:

  • Ensemble coding is a crucial mechanism for auditory processing of sound sequences.
  • Auditory ensemble coding relies on a substantial number of elements, not individual components.
  • This finding extends the principle of summary statistical coding beyond visual perception to auditory domains.