Interpreting pupillary response data in the context of inter versus intra modal distraction

In a 2026 study, Savard looked tested whether directing attention to music modulates autonomic responses to trigger sounds by having misophonic and age- and sex-matched control adults attend to piano music in one ear while neutral, unpleasant, or trigger sounds played in the other, measuring skin conductance, pupil size, PPG-derived heart rate, and NASA-TLX workload. Having found similar pupil size differentiation for trigger and neutral sound condition, but found Misophonia-specific increased responding to the trigger sounds in the silent condition, the authors conclude that it is not simply reflecting pure affective responses to triggers. Rather, the authors propose that the physiological responses reflect the increased processing demands, as a result of the competing auditory (Savard et al., 2026).