Why do we get annoyed by other people chewing food but not ourselves?

Question

Why do we get annoyed by other people chewing food but not ourselves?

In: Other

Answer 1

Our brain is good at cancelling out things under our control. For example, do you notice your vision blacking out every few seconds due to blinking? Your brain cancels out those periods of time so your vision is uninterrupted.

The same occurs for if we are tapping a pen, our foot or chewing.

But someone else’s sounds are not under our control and if they are not occuring repeatably at even intervals, our brain can’t cancel it out. We can’t stop noticing it!