A social cognition perspective on misophonia

The current dominant perspective on misophonia considers this disorder to be related to emotional sound processing, in which a “trigger sound” initiates a strong reaction in the perceiver. However, a sound processing model cannot explain all aspects of our growing understanding of the phenomenology and empirical findings in misophonia, such as the importance of context, coping strategies used, and lack of trigger-specific auditory cortical activation. In this article, we argue that a complete model of misophonia must include the context within which a sound is perceived and the emotional reaction triggered. We review the current behavioural and neuroimaging literature, which lends support to this idea. Based on the current evidence, we propose that misophonia should be understood within the broader context of social perception and cognition, and not restricted within the narrow domain of being a disorder of auditory processing. We discuss the evidence in support of this hypothesis, as well as the implications for potential treatment approaches.