Nonlinear hearing aid amplification partially restores distorted loudness perception.

Evidence

Compression algorithms provide perceptual benefits in a number of ways. Achieving audibility for speech signals is critically important for speech understanding, and compression algorithms do this in a way that achieves audibility without overly distorting signals at high levels. Nonlinear amplification improves the elevated threshold of a listener and partially restores the distorted perception of loudness for some listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1721