The ear sums all sound energy within a critical band into one perceived item

Evidence

The first effect is that the ear seems to lump all the energy within a critical band together and treat it as one item of sound. So when all the sound energy is concentrated within a critical band, the loudness is proportional to the total intensity of the sound within the critical band. … As the ear is sensitive to sound pressures, the sound intensity is proportional to the square of the sound pressures, as discussed in Chapter 1. Because the acoustic intensity of the sound is also proportional to the sum of the squared pressure, the loudness of a sound within a critical band is independent of the number of frequency components so long as their total acoustic intensity is constant. When the frequency components of the sound extend beyond a critical band, an additional effect occurs due to the presence of components in other critical bands. In this case, more than one critical band is contributing to the perception of loudness, and the brain appears to add the individual critical band responses together. The effect is to increase the perceived loudness of the sound even though the total acoustic intensity is unchanged. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 665 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Critical bands are the most important psychoacoustic principle for music perception — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 508; Only harmonics separated by more than the ear’s critical bandwidth are resolved; Spreading a sound’s energy across more critical bands increases perceived loudness without raising intensity — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 665 (+4 more)

Related

• Spreading a sound’s energy across more critical bands increases perceived loudness without raising intensity (similarity 0.95)
• Critical bands are the most important psychoacoustic principle for music perception (similarity 0.90)
• Loudness grows when sound energy spills beyond a single critical band (similarity 0.90)
• Loudness is the summed specific loudness across critical-band rates, not the raw spectral level (similarity 0.89)
• The critical band concept is the key to understanding perceived pitch, loudness, and timbre (similarity 0.88)
• The brain processes sounds inside a critical band as a single lumped item. (similarity 0.88)
• Widening a sound’s bandwidth beyond one critical band raises perceived loudness at unchanged intensity. (similarity 0.87)
• The ear groups sound into critical frequency bands that shape loudness perception (similarity 0.86)
• Uniform exciting noise delivers equal intensity to every critical band (similarity 0.86)
• Loudness increases when sound energy spreads across critical bands to fire extra nerves (similarity 0.86)
• Loudness depends on more than physical sound intensity alone (similarity 0.85)
• Loudness perception requires a tenfold intensity increase to double (similarity 0.85)
• The critical-band-rate scale mirrors hearing better than raw frequency (similarity 0.84)
• Loudness rises once noise bandwidth exceeds the critical band at constant SPL. (similarity 0.84)
• Total loudness is the integral of specific loudness over critical-band rate (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Only harmonics separated by more than the ear’s critical bandwidth are resolved #expands (0.95)
• Loudness grows when sound energy spills beyond a single critical band #expands (0.95)
• Spreading a sound’s energy across more critical bands increases perceived loudness without raising intensity #expands (0.92) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 665
• What the ear perceives can diverge from sound’s physical components. #corroborates (0.80) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1568
• Threshold in quiet depends on total sound intensity within one critical band only #expands (0.80) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 888
• The critical band concept is the key to understanding perceived pitch, loudness, and timbre #complicates (0.75)