The Brain Basis of "Hatred of Sound" : Misophonia
Misophonia is hearing a particular sound that makes a person aggravated, irritated or angry. The common types of trigger sounds are pen clicking, chewing on food, and breathing. A person that is misophonic will experience a physiological arousal from the trigger sound. Their body will enter a state called "Fight or Flight", which is a part of the sympathetic system. The person first response will be actions of uncontrollable disgust, anger, or irritation to the people that are doing the trigger noises. Some people will try to suppress how they feel about the sounds they hear. Medical professionals believe misophonia is closely related to a psychiatric disorder. Misphonic individuals symptoms are similar to ADHD and OCD.
This topic relates to a topic in Cognitive Psychology. It includes the cognitive processes and the outcome it has in the body.The auditory cortex process the trigger sound or stimuli send to the amygdala to process an emotional response. Misophonia was also correlated with synesthesia. Synesthesia is a condition in which a person experiences crossed response to a stimulus. It happens when a stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to an automatic experience in a second sensory pathway. For example, seeing a letter and associating with the color red. In this context, hearing a trigger sound and associating it with anger.
This topic relates to a topic in Cognitive Psychology. It includes the cognitive processes and the outcome it has in the body.The auditory cortex process the trigger sound or stimuli send to the amygdala to process an emotional response. Misophonia was also correlated with synesthesia. Synesthesia is a condition in which a person experiences crossed response to a stimulus. It happens when a stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to an automatic experience in a second sensory pathway. For example, seeing a letter and associating with the color red. In this context, hearing a trigger sound and associating it with anger.
I think the most interesting part of misophonia is that there is no known account for how it happens. When processing sound, the path is meant to transform the vibrations into comprehension, but where does the emotion response come from? To me, the only thing that makes sense is that the sound is stored as a memory in the hippocampus and when the sound is comprehended then the originating memory will reinforce the dislike of that particular sound. In my psychology of learning class we focus on the idea that there is a starting moment in which behaviors begin even if that specific memory cannot be remembered. This means that the behavior of disliking a sound is learned from an event and is being reinforced since it is stored in the memory. The sound can almost be seen as an aversive which is what is eliciting the negative emotion. Do you think it is possible to view misophonia as a learned response due to an originating event?
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to view misophonia as a learned response. Majority of people will not have a physiological arousal to the sound of pen clicking, people chewing food, or smacking on gum. However, it is possible a person may had a negative experience with a particular sound and every time they hear it, they become angry.If you ask someone they reason behind their emotional response from the sound,their reason will be "I don't know" or "I just hate it". They may not remember the originating event or it never happened. For example, in the "Little Albert" experiment, Albert's response to white and furry things was filled with fear because loud and random noise he heard when he saw or touch the rat. In this case, what if a person was never conditioned to have such a negative emotional response to a sound. It can't be a learned response. In summation, it can be viewed a learned response but just need evidence to support it.
ReplyDeleteFrom personal experience, I feel as if misophonia (even in its most mild forms) effects more people than we think. The common types of trigger sounds may not affect someone to the point where they have uncontrollable disgust, anger and irritation, but may affect them enough to where the sound is at most annoying to them. This often happens to me when I am trying to study or read in a quiet place and someone is clicking their pen on the table or listening to music very loud. I do wish there was more information and research regarding the clarification to misophonia's neurobiological bases. If misophonia is due to faulty enhanced neural connections in the brain, it would be interesting to do more research on treatment options to help the reactions to certain sounds. In my Abnormal Psychology class, my professor discussed doing a treatment in which you expose the patient to the stimulus (or in this case sound), and help teach them normal mechanisms for responding to the stimulus (irritating sounds). With this treatment you could also help reduce the level of response instead of trying to change it. I hope in the near future we can see more research on misophonia and eventually develop a treatment to help individuals that suffer with this.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of this disorder until I read this, but I have heard of synesthesia. As others have stated, I wonder if this disorder can be caused by a bad experience with a sound or it's just something that happens on a biochemical level where hearing the sound induces this strong negative emotional state. I feel like this order might also be linked to hypervigilance of the environment since it was compared to ADHD. Perhaps these people are more sensitive to hearing sounds. This oversensitivity (as found in other disorders) may completely draw their focus to the sound and all they can hear and focus on is the sound which then triggers an emotional state. I also like the comparison to synesthesia. Perhaps this disorder effects the wiring of the brain where as a particular stimulus triggers a certain emotion. I also wonder if the opposite effect can occur. For example, if pen clicking induces anger, can another odd sound such as tapping a glass bottle induce positive emotions such as feeling calm or happy. I think that could be very telling in determining how the disorder works and what causes it.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this article I was not aware of the term Misophonia and I was certainly unaware that it is an on going disagreement on whether it should be labeled as a psychiatric disorder. I can understand why obnoxious chewing and clicking a pen can cause a person to feel frustration. I think everyone has experienced this one time or another in their life. As the article notes, this is often seen overlapped with other psychiatric disorders, one of them being PTSD. I can very much see this contributing to Misophonia. People with PTSD have had horrific past experiences and these repetition of noises can trigger certain feelings in individuals with PTSD. I would like to see more research proposed on this subject. Elizabeth mentioned that certain stimuli can trigger certain emotions. Could other psychological disorders serve as a basis to further explain why people experience Misophonia and how this can be detected? What treatments would be used to help cure this disorder?
ReplyDeleteI think this shows how much memory is important when it comes to emotions. Like others have previously posted, If you were to ask someone why they did not like the sound they probably would not know. I think it has something to do with memory as past experiences,regardless of if the person remembers or not, as to why a sound like a clocking pen would affect someone so much. Why else would such a simple, everyday sound affect someone like that? I think this also supports the Cognitive Theory of Emotion and how a stimulus must be present in order to feel emotion and for physiological changes in the body to occur.
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