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

Anatomy of the Ear01:16

Anatomy of the Ear

8.5K
Auditory sensation, commonly called hearing, involves the transformation of sonic waves into neural impulses facilitated by the structures of the auditory organ. The prominent, flesh-like structure on the side of the head, called the auricle, directs sound waves towards the auditory canal. The auricle is often mislabeled as the pinna, a term more aligned with mobile structures like a feline's external ear. The auditory canal penetrates the cranium via the external auditory meatus of the...
8.5K
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location01:21

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

279
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...
279
The Cochlea01:13

The Cochlea

45.3K
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.
45.3K
Auditory Perception01:17

Auditory Perception

389
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...
389
Hearing01:31

Hearing

52.6K
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.
52.6K
Perception of Sound Waves01:01

Perception of Sound Waves

4.5K
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...
4.5K

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by
Same author

Sleep Oscillations Across Cortical, Subcortical and Cerebellar Structures in Magnetoencephalography.

The European journal of neuroscience·2026
Same author

Modulating sleep: slow oscillation and spindle stimulation effects on physiology and memory.

NPJ science of learning·2026
Same author

Exploring Deep Magnetoencephalography via Thalamo-Cortical Sleep Spindles.

Human brain mapping·2025
Same author

Personalizing brain stimulation: continual learning for sleep spindle detection.

Journal of neural engineering·2025
Same author

Sound degradation type differentially affects neural indicators of cognitive workload and speech tracking.

Hearing research·2025
Same author

Auditory processing up to cortex is maintained during sleep spindles.

PNAS nexus·2024
Same journal

A Unified Neural Time Course for Words, Phrases, and Sentences: MEG Evidence from Parallel Presentation.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

Lexical Representations of the Native and Second Languages During L2 Word Reading in Chinese-English Bilinguals.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

Same Sentences, Different Grammars, Different Brain Responses?: An MEG Study on Case and Agreement Encoding in Hindi and Nepali Split-Ergative Structures.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

The Nature of a Writing System Shapes the Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms for Reading Acquisition.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

How Low-Frequency Neural Activity Structures Language in Time.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

A Novel Approach to Map the Causal Impact of Brain Stimulation on Semantic Processing With Language Models.

Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 29, 2025

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

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

16.5K

Decoding of Envelope vs. Fundamental Frequency During Complex Auditory Stream Segregation.

Keelin M Greenlaw1,2,3, Sebastian Puschmann4, Emily B J Coffey1,2,3

  • 1Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.

Neurobiology of Language (Cambridge, Mass.)
|May 22, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Understanding how the brain processes sound in noisy environments is key. This study shows that the brain enhances attended sounds by strengthening lower-frequency neural representations, aiding auditory stream separation.

Keywords:
auditory stream segregationhearing-in-noiseneural decodingpitch representationreconstructionspeech-in-noise

More Related Videos

Author Spotlight: Advancing the Study of Brain-Heart Interplay with a Comprehensive EEGLAB Plugin for Multimodal Signal Analysis
08:22

Author Spotlight: Advancing the Study of Brain-Heart Interplay with a Comprehensive EEGLAB Plugin for Multimodal Signal Analysis

Published on: April 26, 2024

2.0K
Combined Invasive Subcortical and Non-invasive Surface Neurophysiological Recordings for the Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Functions in Humans
08:25

Combined Invasive Subcortical and Non-invasive Surface Neurophysiological Recordings for the Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Functions in Humans

Published on: May 19, 2016

10.8K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 29, 2025

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

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

16.5K
Author Spotlight: Advancing the Study of Brain-Heart Interplay with a Comprehensive EEGLAB Plugin for Multimodal Signal Analysis
08:22

Author Spotlight: Advancing the Study of Brain-Heart Interplay with a Comprehensive EEGLAB Plugin for Multimodal Signal Analysis

Published on: April 26, 2024

2.0K
Combined Invasive Subcortical and Non-invasive Surface Neurophysiological Recordings for the Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Functions in Humans
08:25

Combined Invasive Subcortical and Non-invasive Surface Neurophysiological Recordings for the Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Functions in Humans

Published on: May 19, 2016

10.8K

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Auditory Perception
  • Signal Processing

Background:

  • Hearing in noise is crucial for daily function but poorly understood.
  • Neural mechanisms for separating attended sound streams from background noise involve bottom-up and top-down processes.
  • Limited research compares neural representations across different auditory frequency bands (e.g., pitch vs. amplitude envelope).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate neural representations of attended auditory streams in complex, naturalistic listening conditions.
  • To compare task-related enhancement of neural representations across different frequency bands.
  • To understand how cues like visual and spatial information aid auditory stream separation.

Main Methods:

  • Used continuous sound excerpts with predictive, visual, and spatial cues.
  • Presented listeners with a target sound among four acoustically similar streams.
  • Analyzed single-channel electroencephalography (EEG) data to decode pitch and envelope information.

Main Results:

  • Both low and high-frequency information were represented in brain responses.
  • The attended sound stream showed strong enhancement primarily in slower, lower-frequency neural representations.
  • Pitch and envelope information were successfully decoded from EEG data.

Conclusions:

  • Attended sound representations are progressively strengthened at higher processing stages.
  • Multiple brain systems interact to facilitate auditory stream separation.
  • Findings advance understanding of auditory processing in challenging, real-world listening scenarios.