Discrimination of equal-energy, equally detectable auditory stimuli

Two experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, psychometric functions were generated for tones of 988 Hz of 16 and 64 ms duration. The results indicate that for detection, both durations are within critical duration, i.e., equal detection levels were obtained for stimuli of equal energy. In the second experiment, pairs of equal-energy, equally detectable tones of 16 and 64 ms were used to test the ability of subjects to discriminate between them. The results indicate that equal-energy, equally detectable tones of different intensities and durations are discriminable from one another although the durations do not exceed the limits of complete reciprocity when the response measure is detection. Two different interpretations are presented and discussed.