Science Has Announced That People Who Hate the Sound of Chewing Have a Special Quality

by N/A, 10 years ago | 2 min read

Loud chewers are THE WORST, but if you're noticing people's disgusting chewing habits, there may be a bright side - you're sort of a creative genius.

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Do you get annoyed by loud chewers? Does the swishy sound of mouth noises from others totally ruin your appetite and make you wanna vom?

It drives you nuts that other people don't seem to notice those icky sounds of food swishing around in their mouths. The sound is literally like nails on a chalkboard to you.

Well, according to a study done at Northwestern University, you are more likely to have a creative brain if you tend to notice the (gross) sounds of others chewing.

The study found a link between creative thinkers and "sensory gating," the involuntary neurological process that filters out irrelevant stimuli, like the sound of chewing.

The study, published in Neuropsychologia in March 2015, asked 97 participants to fill out a Creative Achievement Questionnaire and complete a divergent thinking test to assess creative cognition.

It also observed the habits of "creative geniuses" like Charles Darwin, Anton Chekhov and novelist Marcel Proust who had aversions to background noises.

“The propensity to filter out ‘irrelevant’ sensory information … happens early and involuntarily in brain processing and may help people integrate ideas that are outside the focus of attention, leading to creativity in the real world,” lead author of the study,Darya Zabelina, told the Telegraph.

So next time someone is chewing loudly, you can rest assured knowing that you're a creative genius and well, they're not.