Age-related effects on emotional reactions to sounds in individuals with misophonia

Misophonia, characterized by intolerance to specific sounds, triggers emotional reactions like disgust, anger, and distress. While misophonia typically begins in childhood/adolescence, its nature across the lifespan is understudied. Our study assesses audiological correlates and emotional reactions to sounds in misophonia across age groups. We recruited three groups: young misophonia (YM: 18–29 years, N = 14), mid-to-old misophonia (OM: 30–67 years, N = 17), and young controls (YC: 18–25 years, N = 26). All underwent hearing assessments (0.25–16kHz). Participants classified typical trigger and other affective sounds based on eliciting any misophonic reactions and rated their valence on a neutral to extremely unpleasant scale. Results show age-related effects in OM, with poorer hearing (>4 kHz) compared to YM and YC. Both groups had slower response times to trigger sounds compared to non-trigger sounds, suggesting a greater cognitive and emotional load. We found group differences on valence rating and reaction times. OM perceived sounds to be more unpleasant and responded slower to sounds relative to YM, possibly due to age or hearing loss effects. These findings suggest that misophonia may interact with auditory processing of emotions that are influenced by age and hearing acuity. Note that these results are preliminary and data collection is ongoing.