Misophonics reporting increased cognitive load during trigger exposure despite lack of impact on behavioral outcomes

Savard (2026) tested whether attending to music in one ear changes autonomic responses to neutral, unpleasant, and trigger sounds in the other ear, comparing misophonic adults with matched controls on skin conductance, pupil size, PPG-derived heart rate, and NASA-TLX workload.
they found that Misophonic subjects self-reported greater cognitive workload In both experimental conditions, despite no group differences in task performance. (Savard et al., 2026)

• the Authors go on to justify this as some evidence of there still being cognitive load added on to the trigger experience, regardless of the lack of behavioral effects. But their rationale is circular and confusing.