The audiogram measures only detection and conceals varied sensorineural perceptual deficits.

Evidence

The audiogram is an historical assessment tool, developed in the early 1900s, originally used because we had limited knowledge of the ear, and we did not have access to technology that could easily generate and manipulate complex sounds in real time for audiological assessment. The recent century has repeatedly demonstrated that the audiogram does not reflect our multiple auditory perceptual abilities. The audiogram is critically important for addressing site of lesion (whether a hearing loss is conductive, in the outer or middle ear, or sensorineural) and is also widely used to guide hearing aid fitting. However, this text will illustrate that the variability in perceptual deficits experienced by listeners with sensorineural hearing loss is quite high and that the audiogram does not provide a measurement of any other level of auditory perception besides detection. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 36

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what supplemental perceptual measurements exist and how do they change hearing aid algorithm recommendations in practice?
• SEED: An essay angle: why a century-old clinical test still dominates despite demonstrably capturing only one dimension of the experience it purports to assess.