A frequency count is a method of recording the number of times a behavior or characteristic occurs within a specific time period. It is used to track behaviors that one wants to increase or decrease, and can be useful in self-monitoring. Frequency counts are also used in statistical analysis to calculate the number of people or observations that fit into a certain category. For example, in a survey, the frequency count would be the calculation of how many people fit into a certain category or the number of times a characteristic occurs. In the context of electronic instruments, a frequency counter is used to measure the number of cycles of oscillation or pulses per second in a periodic electronic signal. Finally, frequency counts are also used in linguistics to discover the number of occurrences of particular units in particular contexts of language use, principally words in texts.