I tried to ask this question, and maybe it was sent (or maybe cancelled).
Misophonia is a commonly known as a condition where an extreme emotional response is elicited by commonly occurrinng innocuous stimuli, specific to the indiviudal. Common misophonic stimuli include eating sounds and nasal sounds.
I have determined that there is also an elicited physical (usually muscle) response, which presumibly develops through classical conditioning. I have a few reports of a physical response which was an unconscious behavior of an operant behavior (e.g. tensing leg and arm muscles to stand and point). I do not know of any documented research on classical conditioning of an unconscious operant behavior response.
I am a behavior analyst and proponent of radical behaviorism.
If you are interested in classical conditioning and misophonia Iwould like to share what we are doing at Misophonia Institute on classical conditioning of responses in misophonia.
Thank you.
Are you familiar with the studies described here?
Article Control of myoelectrical responses through reinforcement
--John
John, That is an interesting study. As I read it, it is developing operant responses of unconscious muscle behavior. I think most applicable study for misophonia is Pavlovian conditioning: the CS-UR relation (Donahoe and Vegas, 2004). Misophonia conditioned muscle responses support the theory of conditioning as presented in this article. I think we see this same form of conditioning in a surgeon's conditioned reflex response to their pager.
Tom, I had not previously heard of misophonia; it's an interesting phenomenon. That Pavlovian conditioning is dependent on the temporal relation of environmental stimuli (CSs) to changes in the ongoing behavior (the URs) and not the timing of USs provides insight into a number of otherwise problematic findings.
--John
Misophonia is considered a condition where a person has an anger/digust response to common stimuli. My research (see Dozier & Morrison, 2017) identifes a physical reflex response to the misophonic stimuli. The physical response can be anywhere in the body (usually a muscle response) and is unique for each person (and sometimes for different types of misophonic stimuli). My theory is that the stimulus (NS) creates an emotional response with accompanying unconscious physical (muscle) response (URs). The repeated pairing creates the CS-UR relationship. I have also seen cases where the UR is actually a unconscious behavior that is part of an operant behavior, and not a respondent behavior.
John, do you know anyone who would be interested in research in this area? I need an academic partner.
My lab is closed; I "retired" in 2000. I suggest that you get in touch with an editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and ask him(her) to recommend potential collaborators. Best wishes in your efforts.
--John
John, would you have any presentation slides that explain CS-UR conditioning. I have a presentation at the Misophonia Research Symposium in early August. CS-UR conditioning is a critical concept to understanding misophonia.
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