Mechanisms of Spectrotemporal Modulation Detection for Normal- and Hearing-Impaired Listeners.

The sample was small, especially the hearing-impaired group. The hearing-impaired group was older than the normal-hearing group, so age and hearing loss were not separated. The hearing-impaired group had mainly flat mild to moderate losses and was a homogeneous sample. One hearing-impaired participant had a nearly flat perceptual filter and was tested at a higher signal-to-noise ratio; the authors checked that conclusions remained unchanged when this participant was excluded. Normal-hearing and hearing-impaired participants were tested at different sites, and hearing-impaired participants were not tested in sound-insulated booths. The task was laboratory modulation detection in noise, not a clinical speech or communication outcome. The model accounted for group-level differences but not individual differences well.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding came from Agence Nationale de la Recherche and Fondation pour l'Audition.

Do not conclude that hearing loss increases random internal variability or that broader cochlear tuning explains every person's difficulty. The study found similar internal noise between groups, and the model accounted for group-level filter differences but not individual patterns.