Pure-tone audiometry measures detection thresholds, not the ability to discriminate sounds

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. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2369

Categorization

• DEFINE: Draws the crisp line between detection (pure-tone audiometry) and discrimination as two separable capacities of hearing.