New Study Links Misophonia to Cognitive Flexibility, Not Just Sound Sensitivity
Imagine feeling an instant surge of anger at the sound of chewing or tapping – not by choice, but as an uncontrollable reflex. Scientists have long searched for why certain everyday sounds can spark such intense emotional reactions. A new study published in the British Journal of Psychology suggests the answer may lie not in the ears, but in the mind’s ability to stay flexible.
Note: This article is intended for general information and educational purposes. It summarizes scientific research in accessible language for a broad audience and is not an official scientific press release.
For most of us, noises like breathing, pen clicking, or typing fade into the background. But for others, these same sounds can cause distress, anxiety, or even anger. This condition, known as misophonia, has long been thought of as a heightened sensitivity to sound.
New research published on September 13, 2025, in the British Journal of Psychology suggests that misophonia is not just about hearing – it’s also about thinking. The study, titled “Misophonia symptom severity is linked to impaired flexibility and heightened rumination,” found that people who experience strong misophonic reactions also show signs of mental rigidity and repetitive negative thinking.
A Closer Look at the Study
The research was conducted by Vivien K. Black, Kenneth J. D. Allen, Hashir Aazh, Sheri L. Johnson, and Mercede Erfanian. Their affiliations include the Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley (USA); Hashir International Specialist Clinics & Research Institute for Misophonia, Tinnitus and Hyperacusis (London, UK); and ESSCA School of Management (Lyon, France).
The study explores how misophonia relates to two cognitive traits: emotional inflexibility (difficulty shifting emotional responses) and rumination (repetitive negative thinking). While misophonia has often been viewed as a sensory condition – a heightened sensitivity to specific sounds – the authors examined whether differences in cognitive control and emotional adaptability help explain why some people report stronger and more persistent reactions.
What the Researchers Investigated
The team examined three key questions:
- Do individuals with stronger misophonia symptoms show lower emotional flexibility in laboratory tasks?
- Are they also less cognitively flexible, reporting more rigid or all-or-nothing thinking in daily life?
- Is rumination – the tendency to dwell on negative thoughts – connected to these patterns?
The authors proposed that misophonia might not be purely sensory. Instead, it could involve transdiagnostic psychological processes – traits like rigidity and rumination that appear across various emotional difficulties.
How the Study Was Conducted
A total of 140 adult participants were recruited online. They completed a series of behavioral and self-report measures assessing misophonia severity (using the S-Five scale), mental flexibility, and different forms of repetitive thinking.
One key assessment was the Memory and Affective Flexibility Task (MAFT) – a computer-based test that asks participants to quickly switch between judging emotional and memory-related qualities of images. Because the images are emotionally charged rather than neutral, this task captures how well a person can adjust to shifting emotional demands.
Participants also completed the Detail and Flexibility Questionnaire (DFlex), which measures cognitive rigidity – for instance, whether someone tends to get “stuck” on certain thoughts or routines.
Finally, they filled out standardized questionnaires on different forms of rumination, including the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) for general repetitive thought, the Ruminative Response Scale – Brooding (RRS-B) for self-focused reflection, and the Anger Rumination Scale (ARS) for recurring anger-related thoughts.
The researchers also controlled for anxiety, depression, and hyperacusis (heightened sound sensitivity) to ensure that findings were specific to misophonia.
What Makes This Study Stand Out
According to the authors, this is the first pre-registered study to examine both behavioral (MAFT) and self-reported (DFlex) measures of flexibility in relation to misophonia.
Earlier research focused mainly on emotional reactivity to sound – how people respond when triggered. This new work instead explored executive control – the brain’s capacity to shift attention and emotion when the environment changes.
By combining multiple types of flexibility measures and different kinds of rumination, the study provides one of the most comprehensive cognitive profiles of misophonia to date.
Key Findings
The results reveal that misophonia involves more than sound sensitivity: it’s closely tied to how flexibly the brain regulates emotion and thought.
1. Reduced Emotional Switching Accuracy. In the MAFT, participants with more severe misophonia symptoms showed lower accuracy when switching between emotional judgments (for example, deciding whether an image was pleasant or unpleasant). Their reaction times were normal – meaning that the difficulty was not about speed, but about emotional adaptability.
2. Cognitive Inflexibility in Daily Life. Scores on the DFlex showed that people with higher misophonia severity reported more rigid thinking patterns in everyday situations. This link remained significant even after controlling for anxiety, depression, and hyperacusis, suggesting that mental rigidity is a distinct feature of misophonia rather than a byproduct of general distress.
3. The Role of Rumination. All three rumination measures – PTQ, RRS-B, and ARS – were strongly associated with misophonia severity. People who reported frequent repetitive thoughts, particularly brooding and anger-related rumination, also tended to have more severe misophonia symptoms.
However, rumination was not linked to performance on the MAFT task, indicating that repetitive thinking relates more to self-reported rigidity than to behavioral switching ability.
4. Exploratory Mediation Results (Preliminary Findings). The researchers ran exploratory mediation analyses and found that rumination partly mediated the relationship between cognitive inflexibility (DFlex) and misophonia severity (S-Five scale). In other words, people who think more rigidly may experience stronger misophonia symptoms partly because they also ruminate more. The indirect (mediated) effect accounted for about 39–43% of the total relationship, depending on the type of rumination.
Authors’ Conclusions
According to Black and colleagues (2025), the findings indicate that misophonia is associated with both affective and cognitive inflexibility. The authors interpret this as evidence that the condition may reflect broader challenges in shifting between emotional states and regulating attention, rather than simply heightened reactivity to sound.
They note that misophonia cannot be fully explained by auditory mechanisms alone, suggesting that it may involve underlying processes of executive control and emotional regulation – the systems that help individuals adapt to changing emotional situations.
The researchers further point out that rumination and cognitive rigidity may act as transdiagnostic mechanisms, meaning that these psychological patterns could appear across different forms of emotional difficulty.
Finally, the authors emphasize the correlational nature of the study: the data do not establish cause and effect. Because the sample was self-selected and the study conducted entirely online, they recommend future longitudinal and neuroimaging research to clarify how flexibility-related brain mechanisms may contribute to misophonic experiences.
Understanding Misophonia Beyond Sound
This research contributes to a growing scientific view that misophonia is not just a reaction to noise but a reflection of how the brain handles emotion and control.
By linking misophonia to executive functioning – the mental skills that help us plan, shift, and adapt – the study offers a more integrated framework for understanding why some people react so strongly to everyday sounds.
It also suggests that rigid thinking and repetitive negative thought might play a role in how emotional responses to sound develop and persist. These traits could influence not only misophonia but broader aspects of how individuals experience and recover from emotionally charged situations.
Final Thoughts
The findings from this study mark an important step in understanding misophonia as part of a wider network of cognitive and emotional processes. Individuals who report intense reactions to sound also tend to show lower mental flexibility and higher rumination, suggesting that the condition involves more than auditory sensitivity.
While no clinical interpretations can be drawn from this research, its insights highlight how the interaction between emotion, attention, and thought may shape the human response to sensory experiences.
As the authors conclude, future research exploring the neural and cognitive mechanisms of flexibility could deepen our understanding of emotional regulation – not only in misophonia but across the broader spectrum of human emotion.
The information in this article is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. For medical advice, please consult your doctor.
Reference
Black, V. K., Allen, K. J. D., Aazh, H., Johnson, S. L., & Erfanian, M. (2025). Misophonia symptom severity is linked to impaired flexibility and heightened rumination. British Journal of Psychology. Published September 13, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70025
