吃東西聲音大令你抓狂?你可能患有恐音症
If every loud crunch of cereal or hair-tingling slurp of soup makes you want to scream, you may have a real neurological condition - and you're not alone.
如果一聽到吃麥片時嘎吱嘎吱的聲響或是喝湯時令人頭皮發癢的哧溜聲，你就想尖叫，那你可能真的患有神經障礙--但你不是一個人。
The technical term for the condition is misophonia, and it's defined as a severe sensitivity to sounds like chewing, coughing, yawning and more. Some people have more extreme cases of misophonia than others, and find themselves completely distracted by the noises, to the point where they need cognitive behavioral therapy.
該症狀的學名爲恐音症，指的是對咀嚼聲、咳嗽聲、打哈欠聲等聲音尤爲敏感。有些人的恐音症程度比他人更嚴重，他們會被這些噪音分散注意力，甚至需要進行認知行爲治療。
While it was formally named as a condition in 2001, many skeptics still questioned whether misophonia was a real condition. But last year, a study published in the journal Current Biology showed that those with the disorder have a difference in their brain's frontal lobe that causes an intense reaction to noise, and can even lead to a faster heart rate and sweating.
雖然，2001年這一症狀被正式命名，但很多懷疑論者仍有所疑問：恐音症真的存在嗎？但去年，發表在《當代生物學》雜誌上的一篇研究表明：恐音症患者的大腦額葉與他人不同，導致他們對噪音產生強烈反應，甚至導致心率更快、出汗更多。
"I hope this will reassure sufferers," Tim Griffiths, Professor of Cognitive Neurology at Newcastle University and University College London, said in a press release. "I was part of the skeptical community myself until we saw patients in the clinic and understood how strikingly similar the features are."
紐卡斯爾大學和倫敦大學學院的認知神經學教授蒂姆·格里菲斯在一次新聞發佈會上說道："我希望這能讓患者放心，我本人也對恐音症持懷疑態度，但直到看到診所裏的那些病人，我纔開始瞭解這些特徵是如此驚人的相似。"
And in February, another study found that having misophonia can impact people's ability to learn. According to the study, published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psycology, a noise as subtle as gum chewing is enough to impact academic performance.
2月份，另一項研究發現：恐音症會影響人們的學習能力。這篇研究發表在《應用認知心理學》雜誌上，研究表明：即使是嚼口香糖等輕微的噪聲也足以影響一個人的學業成績。
"Some people are especially sensitive to relatively subtle specific background sounds like chewing, and this sensitivity can be distracting enough to impair learning," study co-author Logan Fiorella, an assistant professor of applied cognition and development at the University of Georgia, told TIME.
"有些人對咀嚼聲等較爲輕微的背景聲尤爲敏感，這種敏感度可能會分散他們的注意力，從而影響學習，"研究的合著作者、喬治亞大學應用認知和發展學助理教授Logan Fiorell對《時代》雜誌說道。
The researchers had 72 college students study papers on migraines, with half sitting in a room with a person chewing gum, and the others without. They all then took a test on the material in silence, and those with the gum-chewer had lower test scores.
研究員要求72位大學生研究有關偏頭痛的文章，一半的學生坐在一個有人嚼口香糖的房間裏，其他人則坐在普通房間裏。然後再要求所有人安靜地做有關偏頭痛的測試，那些坐在有人嚼口香糖的房間內的大學生得分更低。
Fiorella noted that none of the students had misophonia, but were still impacted by the noise.
Fiorella指出沒有學生患有恐音症，但噪音仍對他們的測試結果產生了影響。
"It may be especially important for students with higher levels of misophonia sensitivity to avoid studying in places where there are a lot of 'trigger' sounds, such as other people chewing, coughing, clicking pens, or rustling papers," Fiorella said.
"對噪聲特別敏感的恐音症患者而言，記住這一點很重要：避開在有噪音的地方學習，比如有人嚼東西、咳嗽、不停地按筆或在紙上奮筆疾書的地方，"Fiorella說道。
