Standard audiological tests miss most of the perceptual abilities humans need to communicate

Evidence

Although many audiologists routinely collect psychophysical data, the audiologist makes a very limited set of measurements on perceptual abilities. Primary and common assessments include the audiogram, a measurement of the speech recognition threshold (SRT), and word recognition scores. However, these measurements do not characterize the wide range of perceptual abilities that underlie the ability to communicate in everyday environments. Successful communication requires representation of sound intensity, frequency, temporal characteristics, and information from the two ears. Deficits in any one of these representations can lead to deficits in the ability to communicate in the variety of environments encountered by humans. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s standing interest in how clinical assessment under-measures real-world perceptual domains.