Properties (12)
Id c3fb945b-963f-48ec-8b97-95585bdde6ae
Year 2024
Abstract Misophonic experiences are common in the general population, and they may shed light on everyday emotional reactions to multi-modal stimuli. We performed an online study of a non-clinical sample to understand the extent to which adults who have misophonic reactions are generally reactive to a range of audio-visual emotion-inducing stimuli. We also hypothesized that musicality might be predictive of one's emotional reactions to these stimuli because music is an activity that involves strong connections between sensory processing and meaningful emotional experiences. Participants completed self-report scales of misophonia and musicality. They also watched videos meant to induce misophonia, autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) and musical chills, and were asked to click a button whenever they had any emotional reaction to the video. They also rated the emotional valence and arousal of each video. Reactions to misophonia videos were predicted by reactions to ASMR and chills videos, which could indicate that the frequency with which individuals experience emotional responses varies similarly across both negative and positive emotional contexts. Musicality scores were not correlated with measures of misophonia. These findings could reflect a general phenotype of stronger emotional reactivity to meaningful sensory inputs. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience’.
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Aliases
- (Mednicoff et al., 2024)
Import Date 04-14-2025
Dv Status #status/Bare-bones-review
Dv Limitations • Online format limits control over environment, audio delivery, and timing precision. • Lack of fine-grained emotion reporting during video responses. • No direct physiological or interoceptive measures used. • Did not control for or assess comorbid conditions systematically.
Dv Future Directions Explore neural/physiological markers (e.g., heartbeat-evoked potentials) related to interoception and emotional reactivity. • Assess temporal alignment of emotional responses across participants. • Use objective musical ability tests to re-evaluate associations with misophonia. • Investigate misophonia reactions with larger, more diverse stimulus sets and in clinical population
Dv Relevance • good source for basic review of the emphasis of top down cog processing in Misophonia • Validates Misophonia in Non-Clinical Populations. Highlights that misophonic responses are common across the general population, extending the phenomenon beyond clinical samples. • Confirms Misophonia as Emotionally, Not Just Sensory, Driven. Findings emphasize affective reactivity over peripheral auditory dysfunction, supporting theories that misophonia involves high-level emotional and interoceptive processing. • Supports Real-Time, Ecologically Valid Assessment. Demonstrates that real-time emotional reaction tasks (e.g., video click tasks) are meaningfully correlated with self-report scales (A-MISO-S), offering a promising tool for future diagnostics. • Dissociates Misophonia from Musicality. No correlation found between misophonia and musical training or emotional musical engagement, contradicting some assumptions about their linkage and refining hypotheses about underlying mechanisms. • Shows Overlap Between Positive and Negative Auditory-Affective Phenomena. Strong correlations between misophonia, ASMR, and musical chills suggest a shared trait of heightened emotional reactivity to auditory stimuli, whether aversive or pleasurable. • Illustrates the Role of Interoceptive Processing. Suggests that internal body awareness and affective regulation (e.g., insular cortex activity) might be central to how people experience emotionally salient sounds. • Demonstrates Multimodal Emotional Integration. Emphasizes the significance of audio-visual integration and subjective meaning in shaping emotional reactions, relevant for broader models of auditory perception and affect. • Challenges Purely Bottom-Up Models of Auditory Emotion. Evidence supports top-down modulation (e.g., personal relevance, context, personality traits) in determining emotional responses to sounds, refining computational and neural models of sound processing. • Points to a Continuum of Emotional Reactivity. Positions misophonia, ASMR, and chills along a common spectrum of affective responsivity, with potential implications for emotional processing models and psychiatric comorbidities. • Encourages Use of Bayesian Analysis in Affective Auditory Research. Provides a robust framework for evaluating null and alternative hypotheses in correlational cognitive studies, avoiding binary p-value interpretations.
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Misophonia reactions in the general population are correlated with strong emotional reactions to other everyday sensory–emotional experiences
Status:: #status/Bare-bones-review
Metadata
- Item Type: #journalArticle
- Authors: Solena D. Mednicoff, Sivan Barashy, David J. Vollweiler, Stephen D. Benning, Joel S. Snyder, Erin E. Hannon,
- Date:
- Date Added: 1736004726000
- URL: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2023.0253
- DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0253
- Cite Key: mednicoffMisophoniaReactionsGeneral2024
- Topics: [object Object]
- Tags: #Misophonia, #Bare-bones-review-🦴
- PDF Attachments
Article review table
| Background/Purpose | Background- - Misophonia is increasingly recognized as a distinct disorder, separate from hyperacusis and phonophobia, with roots in affective rather than sensory processing. - It is common in the general population and overlaps with traits such as neuroticism, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation. - Positive emotional experiences like ASMR and musical chills share some auditory triggers with misophonia. - Neural correlates of misophonia, ASMR, and musical chills suggest shared involvement of insula, auditory cortex, and other emotion-related areas. - Existing studies have not fully explored whether a general trait of emotional reactivity underlies these phenomena or the role of musicality. Purpose- - Examine correlations between misophonia reactions and reactions to ASMR and musical chills. - Assess whether musical sophistication/emotional engagement with music predicts misophonic responses. - Use real-time video-based emotional response tracking to assess correlations across sensory-emotional reactions in a general population sample. • Examine whether individuals with stronger misophonic reactions also show stronger emotional reactions to ASMR and musical chills. • Test whether musicality predicts emotional reactions to misophonia, ASMR, and chills. • Investigate misophonia in a non-clinical general population sample. • Evaluate real-time emotional reactions to videos across emotional categories. |
| Participants/samples | - Total participants (final sample): 278 - Age: M = 30.7 years (range: 18–76) - Gender: 59.7% female, 33.5% male, 6.8% gender-diverse categories - Recruitment: Mixed online (Reddit, social media, UNLV pool), incentivized for students only - Inclusion criteria: English proficiency, normal/corrected vision and hearing, absence of confounding health conditions - Exclusion: Failed attention checks, audio loading failures, noncompliance |
| Measures | - A-MISO-S (Amsterdam Misophonia Scale) – Assesses severity across 6 dimensions. - Self-reports: ASMR experience, musical chills experience - Gold-MSI: Musical training, emotional engagement, overall musical sophistication - Behavioral: Button presses during video viewing indicating emotional reaction - Self-assessment Manikin (SAM): Valence and arousal ratings for each video |
| Procedures | Stimuli - 37 videos (15s–60s) across 5 conditions: - Misophonia triggers (10) - ASMR triggers (10) - Musical chills (5) - Neutral (10) - Annoying (2) Task - Participants clicked a button for any emotional response (positive/negative) - Provided valence (pleasantness) and arousal ratings post-video - Video categories randomized; headphone checks and attention checks implemented • Online study via Qualtrics. • Headphone check (phase inversion tone test). • Three blocks (random order): • Misophonia block (10 × 15s videos) • ASMR block (10 × 15s videos) • Musical chills block (5 × 60s music videos) • Additional: • 10 neutral videos (15s) • 2 universally annoying videos • Participants clicked button during emotional reaction. • After each video: • Valence rating • Arousal rating • Bayesian correlations and regressions conducted in JASP. |
| Results | - Correlations: - Misophonia reactions were significantly correlated with both ASMR (r = .53) and chills (r = .45) reactions. - Self-reported misophonia severity (A-MISO-S) was positively correlated with misophonia reaction rate, arousal, and negatively with valence. - Misophonia reactions correlated with arousal but not with valence or arousal for ASMR and chills videos. - Regressions: - Best predictors for misophonia reactions: misophonia valence, ASMR reactions, chills reactions, A-MISO-S score. - ASMR and chills reactions best predicted by each other’s responses and arousal ratings. - Musical sophistication (Gold-MSI) scores were not predictive of misophonia, ASMR, or chills reactions. - Valence recoding: - Data recoded based on subjective valence ratings to better isolate negative (misophonia) and positive (ASMR) reactions. - Reanalysis confirmed strong relationships between A-MISO-S scores and negative-valence video responses. |
| Discussion/Limits | Conclusion- - Misophonia, ASMR, and musical chills are intercorrelated, suggesting a general emotional reactivity phenotype or enhanced interoceptive processing. - Real-time misophonia responses correlate with A-MISO-S severity scores, validating the video-task as a useful potential clinical tool. - Musical training or emotional musical engagement does not predict misophonia or associated emotional reactivity. • Emotional reactions to misophonia, ASMR, and musical chills videos were correlated. • Pattern persisted after valence recoding. • Misophonia severity correlated with real-time reactions, valence, and arousal. • Musical sophistication, musical training, and emotional engagement not correlated with misophonia. • Authors propose correlations may reflect: • General emotional reactivity characteristic. • Enhanced interoceptive processing. • Real-time video reaction measures may have clinical utility. |
| Limitations:: | • Online format limits control over environment, audio delivery, and timing precision. • Lack of fine-grained emotion reporting during video responses. • No direct physiological or interoceptive measures used. • Did not control for or assess comorbid conditions systematically. |
| Future Directions:: | Explore neural/physiological markers (e.g., heartbeat-evoked potentials) related to interoception and emotional reactivity. • Assess temporal alignment of emotional responses across participants. • Use objective musical ability tests to re-evaluate associations with misophonia. • Investigate misophonia reactions with larger, more diverse stimulus sets and in clinical population |
| Relevance:: | • good source for basic review of the emphasis of top down cog processing in Misophonia • Validates Misophonia in Non-Clinical Populations. Highlights that misophonic responses are common across the general population, extending the phenomenon beyond clinical samples. • Confirms Misophonia as Emotionally, Not Just Sensory, Driven. Findings emphasize affective reactivity over peripheral auditory dysfunction, supporting theories that misophonia involves high-level emotional and interoceptive processing. • Supports Real-Time, Ecologically Valid Assessment. Demonstrates that real-time emotional reaction tasks (e.g., video click tasks) are meaningfully correlated with self-report scales (A-MISO-S), offering a promising tool for future diagnostics. • Dissociates Misophonia from Musicality. No correlation found between misophonia and musical training or emotional musical engagement, contradicting some assumptions about their linkage and refining hypotheses about underlying mechanisms. • Shows Overlap Between Positive and Negative Auditory-Affective Phenomena. Strong correlations between misophonia, ASMR, and musical chills suggest a shared trait of heightened emotional reactivity to auditory stimuli, whether aversive or pleasurable. • Illustrates the Role of Interoceptive Processing. Suggests that internal body awareness and affective regulation (e.g., insular cortex activity) might be central to how people experience emotionally salient sounds. • Demonstrates Multimodal Emotional Integration. Emphasizes the significance of audio-visual integration and subjective meaning in shaping emotional reactions, relevant for broader models of auditory perception and affect. • Challenges Purely Bottom-Up Models of Auditory Emotion. Evidence supports top-down modulation (e.g., personal relevance, context, personality traits) in determining emotional responses to sounds, refining computational and neural models of sound processing. • Points to a Continuum of Emotional Reactivity. Positions misophonia, ASMR, and chills along a common spectrum of affective responsivity, with potential implications for emotional processing models and psychiatric comorbidities. • Encourages Use of Bayesian Analysis in Affective Auditory Research. Provides a robust framework for evaluating null and alternative hypotheses in correlational cognitive studies, avoiding binary p-value interpretations. |
Notes
key terms and concepts
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Misophonia – A decreased tolerance to specific sounds that trigger strong negative emotional reactions (e.g., anger, disgust), typically without an underlying hearing impairment.
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ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) – A tingling sensation triggered by specific audio-visual stimuli, typically experienced as relaxing and pleasant.
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Musical chills (Frisson) – A physical and emotional response to emotionally intense moments in music, often described as tingles or goosebumps.
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A-MISO-S – The Amsterdam Misophonia Scale, a 6-item scale used to assess the severity of misophonia symptoms.
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Gold-MSI – Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, a questionnaire assessing musical engagement and aptitude.
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Valence – The hedonic tone of an emotional response (pleasantness/unpleasantness).
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Arousal – The degree of emotional intensity or stimulation experienced in response to a stimulus.