The ear groups sound into critical frequency bands that shape loudness perception

Evidence

Unlike tones, real sounds occupy more than one frequency. We have already seen that the ear separates sound into frequency bands based on critical bands. The brain seems to treat sounds within a critical band differently from those outside its frequency range, and there are consequential effects on the perception of loudness. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 661

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Introduces the critical-band concept as the organizational principle of auditory frequency analysis.

Related

• The brain processes sounds inside a critical band as a single lumped item. (similarity 0.91)
• The critical band concept is the key to understanding perceived pitch, loudness, and timbre (similarity 0.87)
• Critical bands are the most important psychoacoustic principle for music perception (similarity 0.86)
• Hearing segregates sounds by frequency unless they fall within a critical band (similarity 0.86)
• The ear sums all sound energy within a critical band into one perceived item (similarity 0.84)
• The critical-band-rate scale mirrors hearing better than raw frequency (similarity 0.84)
• Objective sound amplitude measures do not describe perceived loudness. (similarity 0.84)
• Spreading a sound’s energy across more critical bands increases perceived loudness without raising intensity (similarity 0.84)
• Critical bands govern tonal discrimination and timbre, not overall hearing resolution (similarity 0.83)
• Each inner hair cell responds best to one frequency plus a widening critical band (similarity 0.83)
• Widening a sound’s bandwidth beyond one critical band raises perceived loudness at unchanged intensity. (similarity 0.83)
• The audible range spans 24 bark-scaled critical bands totaling 0 to 24 Bark. (similarity 0.83)
• A sound’s bandwidth independently affects how loud it sounds. (similarity 0.82)
• Critical bandwidth corresponds to the masker frequency range that fills a single auditory filter (similarity 0.82)
• Uniform exciting noise delivers equal intensity to every critical band (similarity 0.82)