20% of all adults in the U.S. consume acetaminophen (aka paracetamol) at least once a week.
That’s about 50 million Americans.
The typical use of acetaminophen is to reduce fever and physical pain.
However, an unexpected effect of acetaminophen is that it may reduce empathy and emotional reactions.
Along with my collaborator, Baldwin Way, I tested whether a normal over-the-counter dosage of acetaminophen would blunt emotional responses to three kinds of sound:
(1) Natural Sounds (like waves or busy signals)
(2) Instrumental Music (with no lyrics)
(3) Speech (content-neutral sentences)
Acetaminophen blunts emotion perception.
The results are consistent with the idea that, compared to a placebo, acetaminophen may blunt the perception of emotion in various sounds. The attenuating effect was found in response to music, natural sounds, and speech and was similar across positive and negative emotions.
