Attention and physiological responses to task-irrelevant sounds in misophonia

Misophonia is a disorder in which certain sounds (known as triggers) cause a negative and often overwhelming emotional response. Common triggers include human-produced and repetative sounds such as chewing and tapping. The extent to which this response is modulated by task focus - such as whether a sound is attended or not - is largely unknown. Similarly, the extent to which these responses are specific to triggers or found, to some degree, for a wider range of stimuli is unclear.

In this study, two groups (misophonics, controls) engage in a visuo-motor task during the presence of irrelevant sounds (misophonic triggers, unpleasant sounds, neutral sounds) whilst the effects of distraction (poorer performance in the visuo-motor task) and psychophysiological responsiveness (heart and skin conductance) are measured.

The results show that misophonic triggers elicit more distraction than other sounds (for people with misophonia), but this is set against a backdrop of an overall tendency for people with misophonia to be more distracted by all sounds. We found no differences in skin conductance, but significant group differences in heart rate and heart rate variability across both sounds and silence.

These findings suggest that misophonia is linked to trait-like differences in attentional style and emotional regulation.