Curation of FOAMS: a Free Open-Access Misophonia Stimuli Database

Abstract

Misophonia is a disorder of decreased tolerance to certain “trigger” sounds (e.g., chewing, tapping, clicking). While misophonia research is scant in general, studies presenting sounds are especially rare and methodologically variable, likely due to the labor and time required to create stimuli. Thus, we introduce FOAMS: Free Open-Access Misophonia Stimuli, a sound bank publicly available on Zenodo, accompanied by pilot discomfort ratings for 32 of these sounds (4 exemplars of 8 classes). The FOAMS database aims to decrease the burden on researchers, facilitating reproducibility and the pursuit of nuanced research questions to better understand this perplexing disorder.