Auditory detection and discrimination are distinct abilities that can diverge

Evidence

Pure-tone audiometry tests a subject’s ability to detect different frequencies, and the dBHL values indicate the extent to which the subject’s hearing is reduced at different frequencies. It thus indicates those frequency regions in which a subject is perhaps less sensitive than normally hearing listeners. This could, for example, be interpreted in practice in terms of timbral differences between specific musical sounds that might not be heard or vowel or other speech sounds that might be difficult to perceive. However, pure-tone audiometry does not provide a complete test of a subject’s hearing ability to discriminate between different sounds. Discrimination of sounds does start with the ability to detect the sounds, but it also requires appropriate sound processing to be available. For example, if the critical bands (see Section 2.2) are widened, they are less able to separate the components of complex sounds—the most important to us being speech. In order to test hearing discrimination, speech audiometry is employed that makes use of spoken material. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2369 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Speech discrimination requires five distinct auditory features — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1868; Electrode pairs are judged discriminable only when performance exceeds chance; Neural evidence of encoding auditory objects requires modulation by perceptual reports — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4886 (+6 more)

Related

• Detecting sounds and discriminating between them are distinct hearing abilities. (similarity 0.96)
• Speech perception requires both detection and discrimination of sound components (similarity 0.95)
• Detection is prerequisite to but insufficient for sound discrimination (similarity 0.91)
• Detecting sounds does not guarantee discriminating them, which also needs intact critical-band processing (similarity 0.88)
• Speech discrimination requires five distinct auditory features (similarity 0.88)
• Auditory perception is a four-level hierarchy from detection to comprehension. (similarity 0.83)
• Speech discrimination requires intact frequency resolution (similarity 0.82)
• Hearing discrimination is measured phonetically by scoring correct speech sounds. (similarity 0.82)
• Electrode pairs are judged discriminable only when performance exceeds chance (similarity 0.82)
• Psychoacoustics measures detection, discrimination, magnitude, and recognition of sounds (similarity 0.81)
• Humans discriminate level differences of under half a decibel across a 100 dB range (similarity 0.80)
• Successful communication requires multiple distinct auditory perception abilities beyond simple detection. (similarity 0.79)
• No single standard metric describes auditory intensity discrimination (similarity 0.79)
• Audiograms test pure-tone detection because pure tones are maximally frequency-specific (similarity 0.79)
• The audiogram only measures sound detection, omitting everything else about auditory perception. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Detecting sounds and discriminating between them are distinct hearing abilities. #corroborates (0.98) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2369
• Speech perception requires both detection and discrimination of sound components #qualifies (0.75)