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Misophonia (or selective sound sensitivity syndrome) is a disorder of decreased tolerance to specific sounds or their associated stimuli, or cues.These cues, known as "triggers", are experienced as unpleasant or distressing and tend to evoke strong negative emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses not seen in most other people. [8]
This is due to the influence of our knowledge and experience of many sounds we have heard. [8] In order to prevent hearing echo created by perceiving multiple sounds coming from different spaces, the human auditory system relates the sounds as being from one source. [9] However, that does not prevent people from being fooled by auditory illusions.
Certain sounds, such as fingernails drawn down a blackboard, cause strong feelings of aversion or even fear in most humans. A 2004 study claimed that the blackboard sound was very similar to the warning cry of Siamang gibbons and hypothesized that a vestigial reflex is what causes the fight or flight reaction in humans. [ 3 ]
People with autism experience auditory hypersensitivity which can lead to sensory overload. [23] Although people with autism do not have abnormalities in P50 sensory gating, they have anomalies in sensory gating related to the N100 test which indicates an irregularity in attention-related direction and top-down mental pathways. [23]
Scraping a chalkboard (also known as a blackboard) with one's fingernails produces a sound and feeling which most people find extremely irritating. The basis of the innate reaction to the sound has been studied in the field of psychoacoustics (the branch of psychology concerned with the perception of sound and its physiological effects).
Hyperacusis is an increased sensitivity to sound and a low tolerance for environmental noise. Definitions of hyperacusis can vary significantly; it often revolves around damage to or dysfunction of the stapes bone, stapedius muscle or tensor tympani ().
Sound annoyance is a subjective matter and cannot be covered by law. In the Netherlands the government set up laws to protect households and other noise-sensitive buildings like hospitals and schools from noise pollution. There are different laws for different sound sources; airplanes, traffic, industry and neighbours. [13]
The eardrum is an airtight membrane, and when sound waves arrive there, they cause it to vibrate following the waveform of the sound. Cerumen (ear wax) is produced by ceruminous and sebaceous glands in the skin of the human ear canal, protecting the ear canal and tympanic membrane from physical damage and microbial invasion. [5]