School of Psychology, University of Sussex, England.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2021 Dec;43(10):1006-1017. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2022.2056581. Epub 2022 Mar 24.
Misophonia is an unusually strong aversion to everyday sounds, such as chewing, crunching, or breathing. Here, we ask whether misophonia might be tied to an unusual profile of attention (and related traits), which serves to substantially heighten an otherwise everyday disliking of sounds.
In Study 1, we tested 136 misophonics and 203 non-misophonics on self-report measures of attention to detail, cognitive inflexibility, and auditory imagery, as well as collecting details about their misophonia. In Study 2, we administered the Embedded Figures task to 20 misophonics and 36 non-misophonics.
We first showed that the degree to which sounds trigger misophonia reflects the pattern by which they are (more mildly) disliked by everyone. This suggests that misophonia is scaffolded onto existing mechanisms rather than qualitatively different ones. Compared to non-misophonics, we also found that misophonics self-reported greater attention to detail, cognitive inflexibility, and auditory imagery. As their symptoms worsen, they also become more accurate in an attentional task (Embedded Figures).
Our findings provide a better understanding of misophonia and support the hypothesis that dispositional traits of attention to detail may be key to elevating everyday disliking of sound into the more troubling aversions of misophonia.
恐声症是一种对日常声音（如咀嚼、嘎吱作响或呼吸声）异常强烈的厌恶。在这里，我们想知道恐声症是否与一种异常的注意力（和相关特征）有关，这种注意力（和相关特征）会极大地加剧人们对声音的厌恶。
在研究 1 中，我们对 136 名恐声症患者和 203 名非恐声症患者进行了注意力细节、认知灵活性和听觉表象的自我报告测试，同时收集了他们恐声症的详细信息。在研究 2 中，我们对 20 名恐声症患者和 36 名非恐声症患者进行了嵌入式图形任务测试。
我们首先表明，声音引发恐声症的程度反映了它们（更轻微地）被所有人不喜欢的模式。这表明恐声症是建立在现有的机制上的，而不是建立在完全不同的机制上的。与非恐声症患者相比，我们还发现恐声症患者报告的注意力细节、认知灵活性和听觉表象更强。随着他们的症状恶化，他们在注意力任务（嵌入式图形）中也变得更加准确。
我们的研究结果提供了对恐声症的更好理解，并支持这样的假设，即注意力细节的特质可能是将对声音的日常厌恶提升为更麻烦的恐声症的关键。
