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

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location01:21

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

1.3K
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...
1.3K
Perception01:28

Perception

1.8K
Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
1.8K
The Cochlea01:13

The Cochlea

41.0K
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.
41.0K
Perception of Sound Waves01:01

Perception of Sound Waves

4.7K
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...
4.7K
Hearing01:31

Hearing

48.0K
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.
48.0K
Auditory Pathway01:15

Auditory Pathway

7.1K
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...
7.1K

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by
Same author

Construction of Transcutaneous Immuno-oncology Vaccine Patches Based on Total RNA from Immunogenic Cell Death-Induced Tumor Cells: Characterization, Immunological Activity, and Safety Evaluation.

Applied biochemistry and biotechnology·2026
Same author

Psychological Factors, Serum Trace Elements, and Clinical Features of Factitious Oral Ulcers in Children and Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Oral diseases·2026
Same author

Noninvasive Transdermal Administration of mRNA Vaccines Encoding Multivalent Neoantigens Effectively Inhibits Melanoma Growth.

ACS biomaterials science & engineering·2024
Same author

Using process features to investigate scientific problem-solving in large-scale assessments.

Frontiers in psychology·2023
Same author

Segmented relations between online reading behaviors, text properties, and reader-text interactions: An eye-movement experiment.

Frontiers in psychology·2023
Same author

Significantly different noun-verb distinguishing mechanisms in written Chinese and Chinese sign language: An event-related potential study of bilingual native signers.

Frontiers in neuroscience·2022
Same journal

Dawn of the dread: threatening cinematic virtual reality environments enhance general but not specific pavlovian-instrumental transfer.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Transcranial alternating current stimulation improves cognitive functions in healthy subjects through modifying frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks based on personalized individual theta frequency analysis.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Functional loss of PKMζ in the dorsal hippocampus potentiates the time-dependent increase in false contextual fear memory and impairs spatial recognition memory in mice.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Distinct orbitofrontal circuits with dorsal and ventral CA1 differentially regulate spatial memory and emotional behaviors.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Towards a neurophysiological model of kundalini: a theoretical framework informed by preliminary clinical observations.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Interactive impacts of social deprivation and intranasal oxytocin administration on oxytocin receptor density in prairie vole brains.

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 1, 2026

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
05:38

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Published on: June 29, 2021

2.2K

Temporal relation between top-down and bottom-up processing in lexical tone perception.

Lan Shuai1, Tao Gong2

  • 1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD, USA.

Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
|April 12, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study reveals that both auditory and linguistic processing of lexical tones occur simultaneously. Language processing relies on general cognitive functions, challenging the idea of dedicated neural circuits.

Keywords:
ERPlateralizationlexical toneparallel modelserial model

More Related Videos

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

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

17.3K
Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
08:08

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese

Published on: April 1, 2016

8.8K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 1, 2026

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
05:38

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Published on: June 29, 2021

2.2K
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
06:34

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

17.3K
Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
08:08

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese

Published on: April 1, 2016

8.8K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Auditory Neuroscience

Background:

  • Speech perception models often separate early bottom-up and late top-down processing.
  • The temporal dynamics of these processes in lexical tone perception remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the temporal relationship between bottom-up and top-down processing in lexical tone perception.
  • To examine the neural lateralization of auditory and linguistic processing in tones.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related potential (ERP) experiments with Mandarin speakers.
  • Utilized dichotic listening, lexical decision with phonological priming, and semantic violation paradigms.

Main Results:

  • Bottom-up auditory processing of pitch variations showed right hemisphere activation.
  • Top-down linguistic processing of lexical tones showed left hemisphere activation.
  • Both processing types occurred concurrently in early (approx. 200 ms) and late (300-500 ms) time windows.

Conclusions:

  • Lexical tone perception follows a parallel processing model, not strictly sequential.
  • Language processing is decomposable into general cognitive functions (sensory, memory) and shares neural resources.