Comparison of Working Memory Abilities in Normal Hearing Individuals with and without Misophonia

Abstract

Misophonia is condition wherein certain triggering sounds elicit emotional, behavioural or physiological responses. Misophonic individuals find it difficult to shift their attention away from triggering sound, resulting in difficulty in paying attention to auditory stimuli. These difficulties maybe reflected while performing certain cognitive tasks as reduced performance or increased listening effort. The study aimed to evaluate working memory abilities along with listening effort in normal hearing individuals with and without misophonia. The current study comprised of 45 participants aged 18-30 years, and divided into three groups of 15 each. Working memory was assessed using forward digit span, backward digit span, ascending digit span and descending digit span. Listening effort was measured through NASA taskload index after completion of the each task. It was found the working memory abilities measured using digit span tests were comparable (p˂0.05) among the three groups. There was no statistically significant difference (p˂0.05) in NASA taskload index scores among misophonic and non misophonic group. The findings of the current study suggest that individuals with misophonia have comparable working memory abilities and listening effort while performing simple working memory tasks which can be attributed to non-continuous nature of misophonia.