PP1327 - Psychoacoustic Assessment of Misophonia

Misophonia is a condition characterized by intense negative emotional reactions to particular trigger sounds and related stimuli. Diagnosis of this condition typically relies on use of one of many available questionnaires, not of which are fully validated. In this study adult listeners (N=14) with a self-reported history of misophonia symptoms completed listening judgements of recorded misophonia symptoms using a standard scale. Participants also completed an established questionnaire of misophonia symptoms, the Misophonia Questionnaire (MQ). Summed scores of the listening task were significantly correlated with overall MQ score. These findings indicate applications for psychoacoustic methods in the assessment of misophonia.

Summary:

Rationale
The purpose of this study was 1) to evaluate misophonia sufferer's severity of misophonia symptoms in response to recorded misophonia trigger sounds and 2) to determine relationships, if any, between these listener responses and a common questionnaire of misophonia symptoms, the Misophonia Questionnaire (MQ). It was hypothesized that summed listener response scores for the recorded stimuli would be positively correlated with overall score on the MQ.

Methods

Participants were adults with normal hearing sensitivity (N=14, Ages 23-60 years) with self-reported history of symptoms consistent with misophonia. Hearing status was confirmed by screening at 20 dB HL at octave frequencies from 250 to 8000 Hz in each ear.

Trigger stimuli were recorded using a condenser microphone (Audio-Technica AT2020) in a single-walled audiometric test booth. Stimuli included common triggers such as chewing, slurping, crunching, sniffling, rustling a plastic bag, typing, etc. Each sample was approximately 10-12 seconds long. Stimuli were presented to each ear through circumaural headphones (Sennheiser HD 280 Pro) at levels listeners reported as comfortable and audible. Presentation level was adjusted on an individual basis, as needed.

Listeners reported the strength of their response to each stimulus using a five-point Likert scale (0=no reaction, 4=extremely negative reaction). Listeners were also asked to identify each stimulus after each presentation.

Lastly, participants completed the Misophonia Questionnaire (Wu et al. 2014). The misophonia questionnaire consists of three parts. Part 1 evaluates the strength of symptoms elicited by different triggers relative to other people using a 5-point Likert scale. Part 2 evaluates listener’s reactions and behaviors in response to trigger sounds using a 5-point Likert scale. Part 3 requires the listener to rate the severity of their sound sensitivity on a fifteen-point scale (1 = Minimal/within range of normal or very mild, 15 = Very severe sound sensitivity).

Planned analyses consisted of two linear regression analyses with summed listener scale scores as the independent variable and summed MQ score (total of Parts 1 and 2) and misophonia severity (Part 3) as the dependent variables. Alpha was adjusted using the Bonferroni method to account for multiple comparisons.

Results

Summed listener scores were strongly correlated with summed MQ score (R= 0.627, p = 0.016). Summed listener scores were also strongly correlated with self-reported misophonia severity (R=0.696, p = 0.006). In those few instances where listeners could not correctly identify trigger stimuli, they rated those stimuli as having low or no aversiveness.

Conclusions

These findings indicate that listener judgements of misophonia trigger sounds are significantly correlated with the results of a common questionnaire of misophonia symptoms. These results are promising in that they suggest applications of aversiveness scales and standard recorded stimuli in the assessment of misophonia. Our findings also point to psychoacoustic aversiveness scales as another means of validation of misophonia questionnaires. Further work is needed to establish a standard corpus of high-fidelity misophonia trigger stimuli and to determine the applicability of psychoacoustic methods in the evaluation of sound sensitivities in other populations (e.g. children, people with autism spectrum disorders).