Cochlear compression loss paradoxically enhances perceived modulation depth

Evidence

Adding a fixed-level broadband noise masker is expected to impact AM detection performance in two ways: (i) wider auditory filters would pass through more noise and degrade performance accordingly, and (ii) AM information within the auditory filter would be more noisy in each coding channel (e.g., in each auditory nerve fiber), such that a sufficient number of AN fibers needs to be present to perform well in the task. … Because cochlear compression loss would enhance perceived modulation depth both in the quiet and noise masking conditions, it was assumed that the differential metric would be able to parse out this effect. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 5903