Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 9;19(5):e0299698. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299698. eCollection 2024.
Misophonia, a heightened aversion to certain sounds, turns common cognitive and social exercises (e.g., paying attention during a lecture near a pen-clicking classmate, coexisting at the dinner table with a food-chomping relative) into challenging endeavors. How does exposure to triggering sounds impact cognitive and social judgments? We investigated this question in a sample of 65 participants (26 misophonia, 39 control) from the general population. In Phase 1, participants saw faces paired with auditory stimuli while completing a gender judgment task, then reported sound discomfort and identification. In Phase 2, participants saw these same faces with novel ones and reported face likeability and memory. For both oral and non-oral triggers, misophonic participants gave higher discomfort ratings than controls did-especially when identification was correct-and performed slower on the gender judgment. Misophonic participants rated lower likeability than controls did for faces they remembered with high discomfort sounds, and face memory was worse overall for faces originally paired with high discomfort sounds. Altogether, these results suggest that misophonic individuals show impairments on social and cognitive judgments if they must endure discomforting sounds. This experiment helps us better understand the day-to-day impact of misophonia and encourages usage of individualized triggers in future studies.
恐音症，即对某些声音的过度敏感，会使常见的认知和社交活动（例如，在有同学咔嗒咔嗒按笔的教室里听讲，或在与咀嚼食物的亲戚同桌就餐时）变得极具挑战性。接触引发不适的声音会如何影响认知和社会判断？我们在一个由 65 名普通人群参与者（26 名恐音症患者，39 名对照组）组成的样本中研究了这个问题。在第一阶段，参与者在完成性别判断任务的同时，看到人脸与听觉刺激配对，然后报告声音不适和识别情况。在第二阶段，参与者看到了这些相同的人脸和新的人脸，并报告了对人脸的喜爱程度和记忆。对于口腔和非口腔触发声音，恐音症患者的不适感评分均高于对照组——尤其是在识别正确时——且在性别判断任务中反应更慢。对于记忆中与高不适声音相关的人脸，恐音症患者的喜爱程度评分低于对照组，而且对于最初与高不适声音配对的人脸，整体记忆也更差。总之，这些结果表明，如果必须忍受不适的声音，恐音症患者在社交和认知判断上会出现障碍。该实验有助于我们更好地了解恐音症的日常影响，并鼓励在未来研究中使用个性化触发因素。
