Bothered By Noisy Eating? It May Affect Your Ability to Learn

If you’re bothered by the sounds of other people chewing, your pet peeve may wreck more than mealtime. In a new study published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, researchers set out to determine how misophonia — extreme sensitivity to the sound of people chewing, coughing or eating — affects learning. They found that people who said they were sensitive to these sounds had a harder time mastering and retaining information when they could hear a person chewing gum, suggesting that misophonia has an impact on academic performance. “Some people are especially sensitive to relatively subtle specific background sounds like chewing, and this sensitivity can be distracting enough to impair learning,” wrote study author Logan Fiorella, an assistant professor of applied cognition and development at the University of Georgia, in an email to TIME. In the study, 72 college undergraduates were given six minutes to study information about migraines, after which they were tested on the material. Everyone was randomly sorted into one of two groups: the first group studied in silence, while in the second group, a decoy student planted by the researchers audibly chewed gum. All of the students took the comprehension test in silence, then answered questions about their own sensitivity to misophonia. Both groups performed about equally as well on the tests — but when the researchers looked only at students who said they were bothered by trigger sou...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime Mental Health/Psychology misophonia onetime Research Source Type: news