For those of us who find eating ASMR videos horrifying

May 26, 2021 3:59 PM

Research reveals why some find the sound of others eating so irritating: Scans show some brains have a stronger link between the part that processes sound and that which controls the mouth and throat (The Guardian): “What we are suggesting is that in misophonia the trigger sound activates the motor area even though the person is only listening to the sound,” said Dr Sukhbinder Kumar, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University. “It makes them feel like the sounds are intruding into them.”

Study abstract (JNeurosci): The motor basis for misophonia

Previously: a feeling of wanting to punch people when I heard them eating, The Hatred of Sound

posted by not_the_water (44 comments total)

I sent this to my friends and family already and I can not mash that favorite button hard enough!

This nails the experience “It makes them feel like the sounds are intruding into them.”
posted by esoteric things at 4:24 PM on May 26, 2021 [12 favorites]

I have this, and I've never heard a credible explanation for it before. I hope this does lead to some kind of productive treatment.
posted by wanderingmind at 4:25 PM on May 26, 2021

Citalopram works for me. Shockingly effective.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:29 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I salute those brave study volunteers for their service. The mere thought of being trapped in a MRI tube, possibly in a head coil, listening to eating sounds is panic-inducing.
posted by supercres at 4:34 PM on May 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

Do Certain Sounds Enrage You? Neurologists May Know Why

Saw this link the other day - excited to hear more about these links (I totally have this problem).
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:34 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I cause this problem if I'm not careful. The fact is, chewing food with your mouth open and air on the taste buds, does enhance the flavors. Not worth the grief you will get however.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:41 PM on May 26, 2021

Yeah, I definitely have issues with hearing people eat. I have one friend who clomps his teeth together hard whenever he eats anything. He makes jello sound like granola.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:53 PM on May 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

As someone who sat adjacent to someone who ate at their desk, multiple times a day, with their mouth open and actively articulating, I can honestly say - sometimes it's the singer, not the song.
posted by djseafood at 4:56 PM on May 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

What about non-eating related sounds that many people with misophonia react to? Would a reaction to these non-eating related sounds also be due to "mirror neurons" too?
posted by RuvaBlue at 4:57 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

"Our results support a model of misophonia based on ‘hyper-mirroring’ of the orofacial actions of others with sounds being the ‘medium’ via which action of others is excessively mirrored. Misophonia is therefore not an abreaction to sounds, per se, but a manifestation of activity in parts of the motor system involved in producing those sounds."
I'd be interested in additional research on this. My personal misophonia is around any kind of sound that I can't control or stop. I figured it was because growing up my dad would always have some political talk show or radio show blasting and there was nowhere to go and nothing could be done to make it stop. Maybe it's not misophonia then.
posted by bleep at 5:40 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just recalling that my dad would smack me in the face if I made too much noise chewing. I figure he had misophonia also.
Of course he was an asshole in many other ways, but this one relates.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:02 PM on May 26, 2021

..I love a lot of ASMR but.. whaaat.
posted by firstdaffodils at 6:27 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Fun fact: back in the day I found out that this thing that I have has a name and a diagnosis. From Metafilter! Thanks again Mefi.
posted by bluesky43 at 6:58 PM on May 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

Although I should add, hearing people eat doesn't work like this for me “It makes them feel like the sounds are intruding into them.” It makes me want to murder somebody.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:00 PM on May 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

This doesn't have a lot of explanatory power for how enraging I find environmental apartment sounds like upstairs clomping or fork-on-plate sounds, but it's interesting nonetheless. My pet theory for my own misophonia, which has at least quadrupled during the pandemic, is it's a combination of an hyperactive response to repeated stimuli, like how being scratched even gently in the same spot can suddenly become painful, and more importantly control issues, which for obvious reasons have become enormously magnified the last year or so. I'm intrigued by the citalopram suggestion.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:01 PM on May 26, 2021

My dear grandmother's mouth would move anytime somebody was talking, sorta mirroring the words. Probably this. But I guess it's hard to really get a horrifying from something so everyday always there common.

This is prime picking for Nam-Shubs, Basilisks, auditory hallucinations, Julian Jaynes, and the Bene Gesserit voice. Auditory stimuli activating the the workings of the mind below the conscious level. Possibly related to The Brain Rotates Memories to Save Them From New Sensations, as in a failure to rotate the auditory parts of a memory away from the motor control parts so they cross activate. Hrm.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:08 PM on May 26, 2021

Im curious in how context dependent it is.

A few weeks ago I was sitting between my mom and my partner on the couch, all of us eating supper. Getting *enraged* by the sound of my mom's chewing. Then listened for my partner's to be able to compare, and realized he chewed at a similar volume as my mom. But his barely registered and caused no reaction, whereas my mom's sounded deafening and made my physically squirm.
posted by EarnestDeer at 8:09 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is why dad forbade gum chewing.
posted by clavdivs at 8:17 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

This still doesn't explain my issue, which is almost entirely related to the "zoom zoom" kid in old Mazda commercials.

Why is he whispering like that and why does that whispering make me furious? People whisper at me all the time in real life and I'm fine with it, but it's been years and I still deeply want that kid to pipe up and talk in a normal voice, if at all.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:22 PM on May 26, 2021 [10 favorites]

What about non-eating related sounds that many people with misophonia react to?

For me, it’s the keystroke sound on an iPhone. Close runner up (that i’ve discovered this past year); the sound of someone typing over a Zoom
Call
posted by thivaia at 8:32 PM on May 26, 2021

Bluesky43 - yep! It's about a millisecond from DOG-OMG-STOP-LICKING (or that?!! bass) to utterly irrational and blinding rage. I can't hear/perceive anything else because it seems so loud/intrusive. Other noises are fine.

I can't explain it, but I am SO thankful I'm not as sensitive to mouth/breathing noises as some! Mine is sounds of licking (dogs, cats, humans) and the bass in music I can't hear. If it's music, I find it "normal apartment-living annoying" but if it's bass-only, 1000% instant blind rage.

I find a good friend's foot tapping annoying but not rage-inducing in the same way. Ditto soup slurping.

But OMG THE SLOW CARROT AND APPLE AND CHIP EATERS, please please for the love of all that is holy just shove it in and chew as fast as you can. Prolonging it makes it so much worse!
posted by esoteric things at 8:33 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

My dear grandmother's mouth would move anytime somebody was talking, sorta mirroring the words.

This is called echolalia, and it is indeed believed to be a consequence of the mirror neuron system.¹ (It's also very common, and once you start paying attention you'll notice it a lot to varying degrees.) Basically, the hypothesis goes, when we hear and understand speech, we are using in part the same systems that we use to produce speech to "mimic" the heard speech internally. Essentially, to understand speech, we "simulate" it using the same systems we would normally use to speak ourselves. During processing of heard speech, the motor output of these neural systems is normally inhibited, but actually some of the motor signal often makes it through, and by sensitively measuring the electrical activity of the muscles in the face it's often possible to detect the tiny, sub-threshold activation of the muscles involved in speaking while people listen to speech. In some cases, due either to some pathological condition like a stroke or non-pathological normal variation in human neural function, or even temporary states like fatigue, this inhibition is weakened or absent. In this case the person will unconsciously or involuntarily produce the same movements used to speak the words they're hearing as they process them.

The hypothesis advanced by the authors of this study seems to be that misophonia works by a similar process, in this case by overexcitation from the connection between sensory parts of the brain used to detect sounds and sights associated with eating and the premotor parts of the brain used to produce eating-related movements. I haven't read the article in detail yet so I don't know if they discuss this, but the example of echolalia actually seems to me like a bit of a complication for their hypothesis. As far as I know, people with echolalia are usually unaware that they're doing it, and don't seem to find the phenomenon unpleasant or irritating in the way that people with misophonia do. So it seems like something beyond just the premotor mirroring effect would be required to explain why misophonia is so unpleasant for those who suffer from it.

In addition to increased connections between auditory and visual sensory cortices and orofacial premotor cortex, however, it looks like they also found increased connectivity between these areas and the anterior insula, which is involved in processing various strong emotions, notably here (depending on the exact site) emotions of disgust and anger. Increased connectivity between sensory areas and the anterior insula is found in a variety of conditions, including certain anxiety disorders like anorexia nervosa, so this by itself wouldn't explain misophonia, but perhaps it is the three-way interaction between sensory cortex, orofacial premotor cortex, and the anterior insula that is critical, rather than it being solely about either the mirroring effect in premotor cortex or the increased connectivity with the insula. Again, without having dug into the article yet I don't know if they discuss this possibility but it seems like a potential interpretation of their findings.

[1] It's worth mentioning that a lot of people in my field, myself included, believe that the extent of "mirror neurons" per se has been perhaps overstated in the popular press. While mirror neurons are clearly important for helping us to represent the movements and actions of others using the same "hardware" we use to produce those same movements and actions ourselves, much has been made of their importance for phenomena like empathy, but the evidence for this is much more mixed.
posted by biogeo at 9:30 PM on May 26, 2021 [14 favorites]

Any time I can hear two different songs playing from two different sources my brain catches on fire.

Whispering also.
posted by wats at 10:09 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is so interesting. My mom would describe certain sounds that she hated like “that sound goes right THROUGH me.” Wonder if she was describing this “intruding” thing that the piece says.
posted by capnsue at 10:29 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Sunflower seeds. For the love of God. Please, save those things for a dark alley. A co-worker indulges in these, and the crack-suck-spit, is... (gestures helplessly) ... especially the suck-spit part. Mmmft-slurp. My visceral fury takes it as though I'm being attacked. I have to wear headphones or leave the room. I'm not sure if it's just the sound I find so upsetting, or the added thought of slobber all over everything she touches, since her fingers are very much a part of this process. Treatment would be helpful as honestly I do not like being so much at the mercy of other peoples' eating whims. Oh, and movie theaters! Stopped going years ago. That crunching, all around. I'd much rather be oblivious to it.
posted by Crystal Fox at 11:19 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

The hypothesis advanced by the authors of this study seems to be that misophonia works by a similar process, in this case by overexcitation from the connection between sensory parts of the brain used to detect sounds and sights associated with eating and the premotor parts of the brain used to produce eating-related movements. I haven't read the article in detail yet so I don't know if they discuss this, but the example of echolalia actually seems to me like a bit of a complication for their hypothesis. As far as I know, people with echolalia are usually unaware that they're doing it, and don't seem to find the phenomenon unpleasant or irritating in the way that people with misophonia do. So it seems like something beyond just the premotor mirroring effect would be required to explain why misophonia is so unpleasant for those who suffer from it.

That's fascinating biogeo, and it made me wonder whether echolalia might actually help with misophonia, almost in the sense of discharging unwanted electrical potential to ground.

So I googled 'misophonia echolalia' and this is what I found:

Does anyone else "copy" the misophonic noises?
Misophonia has been a huge part of my life since I was a child, and a way I tried to deal with it was by "copying" the trigger noise. I don't know why, but it helped a little bit. I still do it sometimes impulsively by accident and it's very embarrassing. I don't know if this is relevant, but I have Asperger's Syndrome.

...
It's called echolalia and many misophoniacs do it. This reddit thread was all about misophonia and echolalia, and this NYTimes article about misophonia quotes audiologist Marsha Johnson saying it's common.

posted by jamjam at 11:57 PM on May 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm fascinated by the possible link with autism, as my mother and I are both autistic and her misophonia coloured my childhood significantly (I still have huge anxiety about breathing and eating too loudly thanks to her constant feedback about me doing those things all the time; it was kind of galling once she realised she had misophonia long after I was no longer living in her household, by which time I'd already deeply internalised the idea that the sounds my body made were a me problem, rather than a her problem).

The mirror neuron stuff is very interesting too. I struggle with watching certain types of violence/gore because I get a really visceral reaction (where it feels like the things that are happening to the characters on the screen are also on some level happening to my body) and I'm now starting to wonder if that effect is mirror neuron and/or autism related.
posted by terretu at 3:57 AM on May 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Aaargh, I can't even read this thread without my body trying to retract into itself like a snail. These noises don't make me angry, they trigger a need to escape.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:24 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

My mom eats popcorn through an entire movie to drown out the other people chewing, so I can't go to the movies with her because she's chewing the whole time. One of her other main triggers is whistling, which isn't a problem for me. But we both get a horrible fight or flight response to the chewing, up to an 8 on the scale.
posted by wellred at 6:09 AM on May 27, 2021

I love ASMR videos, as long as they're certain kinds. No talking or whispering, no crinkly shit, no bells, just people painting on canvases for hours.

Meanwhile, every time someone chews near me with their mouth open, my mind goes straight to "where's my staple gun".
posted by XtinaS at 6:42 AM on May 27, 2021

I had a brief brush with the "instant rage induced by eating sounds" bug a few years ago. I knew that some people found the condition close to debilitating, and it scared me quite a bit. I... willed myself to get a handle on it. It went away.

I probably caught it early?
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:15 AM on May 27, 2021

It's called echolalia and many misophoniacs do it.

Strictly speaking, since the mimicked action isn't speech, I think this would technically be classified as echopraxia rather than echolalia. I mention this not to be pedantic (though I am that) but to help anyone who's curious know what terms to search for. The underlying neurobiology between the two is very similar, and arguably one could say that echolalia is just one specific (and I think the most common) form of echopraxia.
posted by biogeo at 8:20 AM on May 27, 2021

I can't stand whispering on ASMR videos (it makes my skin crawl, and eventually, I will go into a rage) but I'm totally OK with most eating sounds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by airmail at 9:56 AM on May 27, 2021

OK, now can someone explain my misokinesia please?
posted by Hutch at 10:28 AM on May 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Sunflower seeds. For the love of God. Please, save those things for a dark alley.

THIS. THIS. THIS. I can't stand a lot of eating noises but sunflower seeds send me into something that's like panic and rage combined. And I've never found headphones that are sufficient at blocking out the sound. There's a sharp pitch associated with that infernal cracking that can travel all the way across a large room and penetrate the most noise-canceling of noise-canceling headphones ever invented. And the sunflower seed eaters I've encountered do it ALL FREAKING DAY LONG, one horrible seed after another after another after another...
posted by treepour at 10:56 AM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

There's a certain artificially whispery, hyper-soft speaking style some Buddhist teachers here in the West use (I think of it as "Spirit Rock Voice," à la "NPR Voice") which makes me want to scream. And which thereby proves I have so much more Buddhist practice to do.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:57 PM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't say I have misophonia specifically, but I do have one friend who eats with her mouth open and it feels like the sound is going in through my ears and right down the back of my throat...which sounds like the mechanism they're describing, really.
posted by praemunire at 1:32 PM on May 27, 2021

I salute those brave study volunteers for their service. The mere thought of being trapped in a MRI tube, possibly in a head coil, listening to eating sounds is panic-inducing.

I already know I'm a weirdo but I might actually pay a dive bar price cover charge for this especially if I didn't have to be sober.

I love the sounds of an MRI and I'm not opposed to weird performative noises and experimental sounds including some of the weirder parts of ASMR.

Throw some dark ambient and noise music, a few cocktails or some legal cannabis edibles into the mix and I'm there. I could listen to MRI noises mixed with the sounds of someone stirring macaroni and cheese for hours or days.

Actually just play MRI noises at me with all of the above but leave out the actual MRI and put it into an isolation tank for a few hours and I'm in for a great time. I could do this for like twelve hours and just get totally lost and bewildered and floating in space and loving every second of it.

I would actually very much like to figure out how to record MRI noises for use in ambient and experimental music but bringing anything metal or electronic near an MRI is a really bad idea.

Also I've seen some live experimental music performances that involve eating things with microphones and amplified mouth noises that I have found to be intensely interesting that would drive people dealing with misophonia absolutely right out of their skulls in truly horrible ways.

I'm not trying to be mean or cavalier about this but it's fascinating to me that there's such a strong negative response to these sounds while some people actively enjoy them so much.

Some of you would also probably really not enjoy the time when a music friend of mine took a live SM 58 microphone and battered it and then deep fried it while it was live and recording.

It sounded... wet and crispy and so strange. It sounded exactly what you might think it sounded like to actually being a cheese stick while being deep fried. So much high volume and detailed bubble and squeak noises. It sounded incredible.


Any time I can hear two different songs playing from two different sources my brain catches on fire.

This is what DJs deal with when they're beat matching and mixing music together and synchronizing the BPMs of a two or more given tracks.

Yes, it makes you super crazy sometimes.

One of the known downsides of learning how to DJ and beatmatch or mix is that any time you hear two clashing rhythm-based songs or pieces of music overlapping without tempo or key matching is that it drives you totally insane with bad vibes and feelings, especially if they are close and you know exactly how to bring the tempo and phrasing into sync and you can't because it's coming from two different sources like competing car or home stereo speakers, but you can't do anything about it.

On the other hand, very rarely I'll hear competing songs that are almost exactly in sync in some way and it's very pleasing and just right.

It's also almost impossible for me to hear a beat or rhythm and not walk or move in time with it, say, crossing a street through a crosswalk as a car is bumping some beats. I often find myself invoking parts of the Dune novels about having to walk without rhythm just to keep myself from dancing awkwardly across the crosswalk in time with the music I'm hearing.

It makes me feel super sheepish and awkward and I still have no idea why or why it has so much power over my basic physical movements like walking or why it even matters if my walking pace suddenly matches the tempo of what I'm hearing.
posted by loquacious at 3:26 PM on May 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

I find everything about people eating with their mouths open utterly unpleasant. I hadn't realized there was a possible physiological/neurological component to it, but of course, why not.

Gum chewers can be the worst. It's the popping and snapping that sets me off. SO irritating. I hate that GIF of Raven-Symoné anxiously chewing gum, and I completely vibe with the first woman in the Cell Block Tango scene from the musical Chicago.
posted by droplet at 4:01 PM on May 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

That's fascinating biogeo, and it made me wonder whether echolalia might actually help with misophonia, almost in the sense of discharging unwanted electrical potential to ground.

I'm autistic and have misophonia/hypersensitivity to quite a few sounds - I've never actually raged out at anyone, but I have hurt myself in situations where I couldn't get away from the sound. Hitting myself in the head or biting my hands hurts less than the noise does. And this is one of the few things that helps; either to mimic the sound, or hum at the same pitch, or just kind of name the sound; saying "beep beep beep" when the car alarm goes off or whatever. I think interacting with the sound in some way sort of takes the edge off the inability to control it somehow. It makes it feel less horribly invasive. It does sort of feel like it discharges the tension, that's a good way to describe it.

Eating noises aren't my worst trigger, but they're on the list. Smacking noises are particularly terrible #stop kissing in films 2021.

Incidentally, echolalia is something I do anyway, at least in private, and usually it's purely pleasurable. It just feels satisfying.
posted by BlueNorther at 5:59 PM on May 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I wonder if the connection with autism/misophonia/echolalia is just that autistic people tend to have sensory processing issues and sensitivities, of which misophonia is one, and echolalia is common for autistics too. It's all of a piece.
posted by BlueNorther at 6:07 PM on May 27, 2021

This study is interesting, but it cannot explain why repetitive tapping and clicking sounds are such common misophonia triggers of rage and horror (and such common ASMR triggers of frisson). There's no reason to mirror those in your orofacial motor area.

Anyway, I am glad more research is starting to be done in this area, and misophonia is at least recognized as a Real Thing. I feel pretty confident it is related to other nonaural triggers of that aroused anxious rage, like vibrational sensitivities (which esoteric things experiences with bass you can feel but not hear). My misophonic spouse is also driven to feelings of nausea, horror, and wrath by vibrations below my threshhold of perception, like an animal digging somewhere outside, or a person rooms away who is jiggling their foot. She's also got hypersensitivity to smells. And my impression from various online conversations here and elsewhere is that a lot of people experience multiple sensory triggers of that irrational but compelling fight-or-flight response.

I relate this to the slow but eventual recognition by psychologists that there is a very predictable set of tics that people use to self-soothe, like picking at the skin, pulling hair, biting one's nails, or chewing the inside of the cheeks. Not that it's led to any cure, but understanding that these are all basic grooming behaviors, and that we are soothed by being groomed, at least helped people to understand their own behaviors, and therapists to come up with a strategy of suggesting alternate anxiety-reducing behaviors to replace the ones that are causing some harm or embarassment but are so compelling to those employing them. Prior to that, these behaviors were understood in very victim-blamey ways and patients basically "treated" by being further shamed and stigmatized, because that always works.
posted by DrMew at 6:44 PM on May 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

This is only eating-adjacent, but my dad always yelled at us about scraping the fork on our teeth. We thought he was nuts, but as adults, my sister and I have become very sensitive to metallic scraping sounds.

When my husband feeds the cats, he feels compelled to mix their food extremely thoroughly using a fork in the stoneware bowl. It makes my teeth want to jump out of my skull.
posted by BrashTech at 11:48 AM on May 28, 2021

I suppose I should google to find out what ASMR is.
posted by bendy at 10:38 AM on May 31, 2021