Month: August 2015

How do the speech patterns of ASMR artists compare to Bob Ross, Bill O’Reilly, and Geraldo Rivera?

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityGordon McGladdery is a professional composer and sound designer living in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.

He has his Bachelor of Arts in English literature from University of Victoria in Canada and an additional diploma in Sound Design for Visual Media from the Vancouver Film School.

Gordon first learned about ASMR in 2012 and immediately created his own research project.

He analyzed the speech patterns of several ASMR artists (GentleWhispering, VeniVidiVulpes, AppreciateASMR, and others) and compared them to the speech patterns of others (Bob Ross, Bill O’Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, and others).

He initially shared his findings with the ASMR community in an ASMR subreddit thread.

In my interview with Gordon he shares how he first learned about ASMR, the objectives of his study, his ideas about further analysis that could be done on ASMR-related audio, his favorite ASMR artist, and more.

Below are my questions in bold and his replies in italics.

Immediately following the interview is Gordon’s detailed description of how he did his analysis and his data findings.

The post concludes with a podcast Gordon created about his study, as well as, links to his initial ASMR subreddit post, to his spreadsheet of the speech pattern data, to his website, to his musical compositions, and more.

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Meet WhisperSparkles, one of the first ASMR artists on YouTube

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityAmanda McDonnell is a mother of four children and has a diploma in Medical Sciences from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.

She is originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland and is currently living in Glasgow, Scotland.

Amanda is also known as the ASMR artist, WhisperSparkles.

The first whisper channel on YouTube appeared in 2009 (see the History of ASMR for more details).  Amanda created her channel soon after in 2010, making her one of the first dedicated whisperers on the internet.

In my interview with Amanda she shares why she created a whisper channel is 2010, how ASMR videos have changed over time, how her interest in ASMR helped her to meet her fiancé, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, her replies in italics, and a link to her YouTube channel so you can enjoy her early videos from 2010, as well as, her most recent videos.

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Update on Bryson Lochte and his MRI study on ASMR

/ Dr. Richard / 4 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityIn 2012, Bryson Lochte selected ASMR as his research topic for his undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis at Dartmouth College.  He chose to investigate the effects of ASMR videos on the brain by using fMRI analysis.

fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging and reveals changes in the blood flow to specific areas of the brain.  His project’s goal was to demonstrate which areas of the brain show increased activity while participants watched ASMR videos.

In February of 2013 Bryson posted a thread on the ASMR subreddit website requesting volunteers for his research project.  He completed his thesis by May and submitted the results to the Dartmouth College Library Catalog.

In November, 2013 Bryson posted on the ASMR subreddit site that he would not be able to publicly release a copy of his thesis until his data was published.

Bryson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2013 with his undergraduate degree in Neuroscience.  He is currently a medical student at the University of California, San Diego.

In my interview with Bryson he shares an update on his undergraduate thesis data, his inspiration for delving into ASMR research, his current ASMR research project, his insights into the biology of ASMR, advice for those researching ASMR, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and links to his website, his LinkedIn page, and his original ASMR subreddit post.

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ASMR data from website polls (August 2015 update)

/ Dr. Richard / 2 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityMy co-investigators and I are still collecting data for our on-going ASMR research survey.  That research survey has collected data from 13,000 individuals.  Information about that research survey is HERE.

This blog post is an update about the data collected by my website polls which are located on the “First Time Visitor” page.

My prior summary of the website poll data was when there were data from about 150 people.  You can read about that prior summary HERE.

This updated summary has website poll data from about 600 people.

This data is specific to the population of visitors to this website who take the website polls and may not be applicable to other populations.

Below is a short summary of the data, followed by the full data from the polls.

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Meet Deep Ocean of Sounds, an ASMR artist and the creator of a new binaural recording device.

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityPawel is an ASMR artist living in Poland who creates content under the name, “Deep Ocean of Sounds.”

He is one of the few top artists who does not whisper or talk in any way, his ASMR productions are just trigger sounds.

Although “just” is an understatement.

Many of his productions are 3-dimensional experiences in which the listener is immersed in a multi-layer recreation of a triggering scenario like a haircut or walking in a forest.  Additionally, he creates high quality binaural productions focused on single triggering sounds like the sound of scratching or the sound of wooden blocks.

Pawel also recently created and marketed his own binaural recording device, a dummy head with microphones built into silicone ears.

In my interview with Pawel he explains what ‘binaural’ means, how he creates his 3-D sound, information about his new dummy head recording device, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, links to his ASMR recordings, and a link to his new binaural microphones. Continue reading →

Support “Murmurs”, a cinematic ASMR movie currently in production

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityGraeme Cole is a filmmaker who received his B.A. degree in Screen Studies from John Moores University in Liverpool, England.

In 2013, he moved to Bosnia where he is working on his M.F.A. degree in Filmmaking from the Sarajevo Film Academy’s Film.Factory.

Graeme has been creating independent films for over 15 years, and now he has decided to create a movie about ASMR.

The short description of his ASMR movie is, “A reclusive ASMR superstar invites an online date to her studio.  A paranoid romance with tingles.”

The film utilizes ASMR as a central theme to explore the meaning of intimacy and trust between individuals and within society.  This demonstrates a great understanding of ASMR by Graeme.  Intimacy and trust are believed by many ASMR video creators, ASMR video viewers, and myself to be at the core of ASMR.

The film is almost ready, but he does need some last minute assistance to complete and launch his production.

In my interview with Graeme he shares his ASMR triggers (with one of the most poetic and accurate descriptions I have heard about what ASMR feels like), his favorite ASMR artists, his inspiration for the film, challenges with creating an ASMR movie, how funding will be used to complete and launch the production, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and an Indiegogo link so you can watch clips from the movie and also help support the completion of his production.

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