{"id":31,"date":"2026-04-09T09:43:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miso.gushogg-blake.uk\/?p=31"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:37:10","slug":"implications-of-the-reflex-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/card.gushogg-blake.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/implications-of-the-reflex-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Implications of the reflex model"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Misophonia being made entirely of normal emotional responses and Pavlovian conditioning may be a slightly uncomfortable proposition for some. We’ve had a hard enough time getting misophonia properly recognised, and this idea seems to concur with the dismissive attitude that misophonics are “just being sensitive”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other side of the coin is that it validates the idea that we know a miso trigger when we see one. Whole-person involvement and Pavlovian conditioning completely frees misophonia from any narrow neurological definition. “You’re really triggering my misophonia right now”<\/em> — in response to no particular easily-identifiable sensory stimulus — cannot be dismissed as “using misophonia to get one’s way”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately I embrace knowing what misophonia is. That miso may boil down to Pavlovian conditioning and normal emotional responses doesn’t make the experience of it any less bad — although in a way I think it actually might, as I described in How Emotions Are Made<\/a>. Instead, it serves as an indicator of the power of an unwanted reflex to generate serious emotional distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both sufferers and non-sufferers are better for knowing more about how miso works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On being sensitive: I actually find myself agreeing with the idea that general sensitivity may play a large part in (some) misophonia, whereas before I was adamant on cleanly separating it as its own condition — separate from personality as well as other hearing-related conditions such as tinnitus and hyperacusis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be useful — but also potentially dangerous — to develop a notion of a “misophonic personality”. Along the lines of my whole-person ideas, basically anything and everything could flow into the input side for making us prone to trigger acquisition — some examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n