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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...

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.

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...

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...

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.

Sound Intensity Level

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...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 22, 2025

Behavioral Determination of Stimulus Pair Discrimination of Auditory Acoustic and Electrical Stimuli Using a Classical Conditioning and Heart-rate Approach

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Effect of Auditory Predictability on the Human Peripheral Auditory System.

Lars Riecke¹, Irina-Andreea Marianu¹, Federico De Martino^1,2

¹Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.

Frontiers in Neuroscience

|May 1, 2020

Summary

Auditory predictions influence the peripheral auditory system. Outer hair cell activity, measured by distortion-product otoacoustic emissions, changes based on sound predictability and relevance, showing top-down processing.

Keywords:

auditory attention auditory efferent cochlea electroencephalography expectancy otoacoustic emission prediction

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Auditory Neuroscience
Psychoacoustics

Background:

Auditory perception relies on environmental sound statistics.
Auditory predictions occur in central auditory pathways (cortex, midbrain).
It remains unclear if predictions affect the peripheral auditory system.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if auditory predictions are processed in the peripheral auditory system.
To determine if outer hair cell (OHC) activity is modulated by sound predictability and behavioral relevance.

Main Methods:

Assessed OHC activity using distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs).
Presented isochronous tone sequences with varied predictability (tone-to-tone probabilities).
Manipulated behavioral relevance through participant tasks and recorded simultaneous cortical responses.

Main Results:

Predictability altered DPOAE amplitude, dependent on behavioral relevance.
Cortical responses showed significant effects of both predictability and relevance.
Demonstrated top-down modulation of peripheral auditory processing.

Conclusions:

Auditory predictability influences the human peripheral auditory system.
Provides evidence for top-down processing in auditory prediction.
Suggests peripheral auditory system is sensitive to predictive coding and attention.