Why people hate my sound design

(Stick with me, there’s some actual science behind this)

Monday Morning… 10.13 am. I receive a direct message from my work colleague.

“Ryan, that sound you made last Friday…”

“Erm, which one …?”

“The sound of the character eating the Chocolate bar”

“Oh yeh… is it not working in game?”

“No, it’s definitely working, but people HATE IT, Quote: They’re seeing the “red mist”

Cue me spitting out one part crumpet and one part cappuccino. (Crumpuccino???)

“Wuuuuuuttt?”

“Yeh, can we replace it with something else?. 

“Ermmm? Ok…”

(Cue me scrabbling to open Reaper to find the offending sound effect).

Upon replaying the sound, it seemed harmless enough to my ears. I had recorded the tear of a foil wrapper mixed with a chewing noise to simulate the consumption of a tasty, vitality giving energy bar, but there were no technical defects, the volumes were appropriate, and there were no offending eq spikes – nothing that could be said to cause phonic fatigue or aural umbrage.

At the time, it did make me wonder why people had such a strong emotional reaction to this sound (i.e. ‘People are seeing the red mist’). In my 6 year history of producing sound effects and music for video games, I hadn’t really had work rejected with this level of emotional magnitude. Often, any work that requires a second pass, is returned for rework for aesthetic reasons (e.g. material changes or common things like “make it bigger”) Sometimes the sound can be asked to be redone if it exudes a different vision from the one the creators/defining stakeholders were having. But it occurred to me that it was rare that people attach an emotional response when issuing a redo of something small and (reasonably insignificant) like the sound of an energy bar being eaten.. 

The sound was duly replaced with a shorter version (sans chomping) which happily made its way into the game, with minimal resistance from anyone on the team.

So why did some people dislike the sound so much?

As much as it might come across as my refusal to accept that particular sound design just ‘wasn’t the best’, the moment annoyingly hung around in the back of my mind, (like a petulant grumbling thought sometimes can).

Fast forward to two months later… 

Whilst researching another article on Why sounds are scary, (Coming soon!) It turns out I might just have found a scientific reason for all the hate for a sound; a newly identified condition called Misophonia.

Here comes the science bit. 

The newly dubbed Misophonia is the ‘Hatred of sound’, which manifests itself in some people who have significant levels of physical and mental negativity towards specific sounds. For some it can be triggered by toe tapping, for others it’s pen clicking, but crucially (relating to the rancour I experienced), it can be the sound of lip smacking or chewing, when performed by other people.   

A study that was carried out by British neurologists on 42 British test subjects (20 with Misophonia and 22 without) showed that people with suspected Misophonia had genuine physical reactions (raised heartbeat, a rise in body temperature etc) to these everyday types of sounds. At its most extreme, the team of neurologists even observed externalised levels of anxiety and even anger in some test subjects.

Under closer MRI examination, it turns out people with Misophonia have increased levels of myelin around the brain, alongside abnormal connections between the pre-frontal cortex and the anterior insular cortex – the part of the brain responsible for processing information. Crucially this part of the brain also deals with emotions, which compels me to provide this as a possible reason as to why some people might have felt so strongly about my sound. My cheeky chomps could be causing people real anxiety simply because of the type of sound entering their ears. 

This made me consider the potential damage that could be caused to a player’s experience, and how we could genuinely induce anxiety and anger with our audiences. 

Whilst the science is still fledgling, the signs are definitely there to suggest there is something going on with an increased sensitivity, at least in some people  

So to conclude, I guess the message is this, if you are a sound designer and you get one of your sounds rejected by your team, all you have to do to make yourself feel better is wait until some new science comes along which allows you to wrap your anecdotal ineptitudes around… And then write a blog about it.

There, that feels much better.