Cochlear compression: Perceptual measures and implications for normal and impaired hearing

This article provides a review of recent develop-ments in our understanding of how cochlear non-linearity affects sound perception and how a loss of the nonlinearity associated with cochlear hearing impairment changes the way sounds are perceived. The response of the healthy mammalian basilar membrane (BM) to sound is sharply tuned, highly nonlinear, and compressive. Damage to the outer hair cells (OHCs) results in changes to all three attributes: in the case of total OHC loss, the re-sponse of the BM becomes broadly tuned and linear. Many of the differences in auditory perception and performance between normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners can be explained in terms of these changes in BM response. Effects that can b