I don't understand it because it is magic.
But seriously, I know what you are saying about how can you go negative but really think it just a way for them to expand the low end of the discrimination filter range to provide more precise adjustments to the user. Frankly, I think it is really is more of a threshold like setting down there, where you are dialing in the degree of ground feedback noise you are comfortable with while enabling you to see/hear as much iron as you want. Ground feedback probably peaks out or is normalized to what was/is 0 disc. It also supposedly discriminates round iron better (not as susceptible to fooling the circuit into sounding like a high tone). Otherwise, I think it is more about feel than science. Trying to understand it just results in heads exploding and I really don't want to have to think about that when I am frankly relaxing from work by metal detecting. lol.