Loudness equality between monaural and binaural stimuli is measured by bracketing two adaptive thresholds.

Evidence

For each condition, listeners completed two loudness discrimination threshold tasks. These adaptive thresholds served to bracket the point of subjective loudness equality (PSLE): one was the 71 % threshold for identifying when a monaural stimulus was louder than a binaural one, and the other was the 71 % threshold for identifying when the monaural stimulus was quieter than a binaural one. For a given condition, the two adaptive tracks started with the adapted (monaural) sound level 15 dB above and below the level of the reference (binaural) stimulus, respectively. In each task, the listeners were required to identify the louder of two stimuli in a 2-down, 1-up adaptive procedure with six reversals. The two thresholds were averaged to yield a PSLE for that condition. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1536

Categorization

• DEFINE: PSLE (point of subjective loudness equality) measurement method is spelled out here, useful as procedural grounding for later loudness comparisons.
• XREF: connects to: Auditory thresholds are measured by adaptive level bracketing with a 50 percent response criterion. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2343