Possible contribution of cochlear compression to amplitude modulation detection

Among his many research areas, Sid Bacon's work on auditory temporal processing, and his effort to connect psychophysical phenomena with cochlear compression, contributed greatly to our understanding of auditory system function. Inspired by his work, I will present research suggesting that (1) temporal processing, as measured by amplitude-modulation (AM) detection, is better for people with cochlear hearing impairment (HI) than those with normal hearing (NH) when the age of groups and loudness of the stimuli is matched, (2) AM detection of a target is poorer when an AM masker is presented at frequencies in a region with hearing loss than in a region of normal hearing, (3) masking of AM detection by an AM masker is reduced in HI when the masker is compressed using a low-distortion compressor, but is unaffected for NH, and (4) amplitude modulation of 2f1-f2, Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions recorded with amplitude-modulated f1 and steady-state f2, is correlated with AM perception. Taken together, th...