ASMR videos will be one of several video genres featured in a new museum exhibit titled, “The New Genres: Video in the Internet Age.”
The exhibit is focusing on the following new video genres which have appeared over the last two decades: vlogs, Let’s Play videos, Unboxing videos, and ASMR videos.
Specific videos of each genre will be highlighted because they have been considered to be “significant, influential, and representational of these videos.”
Christian S. is a junior high school student in New York. He is enrolled in an Advanced Placement course and has decided to do a research project about ASMR.
His research question is: “To what extent does Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) impact the levels of anxiety and depression in teens?”
He has created a survey for teenagers to investigate the relationship between watching ASMR videos and mental health.
Christian created questions about ASMR and also incorporated standardized questions from the Becks Depression Inventory and the Becks Anxiety Inventory to help him compare his results to other published results.
His survey is anonymous, specific for teenagers, and will remain open for about the next week.
In 2016, I posted an article that began, “Filmmaker begins production of the ASMR-inspired movie.”
Good news. The movie is done and available for all to view.
The movie was created by Mike Reed who lives in Denmead, UK. Mike also creates ASMR videos for his YouTube channel, “ASMR Show”
The working title of his movie was, “P.A.I.N.” and is now released as “3AMASMR” or you can think of the title as “3 am ASMR.”
Dr Agnieszka Janik McErlean is the lead author of the publication, “Assessing individual variation in personality and empathy traits in self-Reported Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.”
At the time of the publication she was a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at James Cook University in Singapore. In January 2018, she will be a Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Psychology at Bath Spa University in the UK.
Dr Janik McErlean co-authored the paper with Dr Michael Banissy and the research was published March 30, 2017 in the journal Multisensory Research.
In my interview with Dr Janik McErlean she shares how she became interested in researching ASMR, the goals and methods of her study, the insights she uncovered about ASMR triggers, and her findings about the personality and empathy traits of ASMR responders.
It has been almost 10 months since Ritz launched their ASMR-inspired commercial on Nov 30, 2016.
I wrote an initial article about this on December 5, 2016 but I wanted to do this follow-up article to share some interesting information.
Dr. Diego Garro is a Senior Lecturer at Keele University in the United Kingdom. He has a BSc in Electronic Engineering, an MSc in Digital Music Technology, an MA in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and a PhD in Composition.
In 2015, I interviewed Dr. Garro about his translated summary of Alejandro Navarro Expósito’s Spanish-language dissertation, “Neuropsychological and neurophysiological characterization of ASMR”.
Dr. Garro has continued his interest in ASMR by writing a paper titled, “ASMR – from internet subculture to audiovisual therapy” and presenting it at the 2017 Electronic Visualization and the Arts conference in London.
In my interview with Dr. Garro he shares how he became interested in studying ASMR, the goals of his paper, reactions to his conference presentation, and tips for others doing ASMR presentations.
2020 update: another report of a virtual-touch haptic device that could someday enhance ASMR videos (Summary; Research Article).
Initial 2017 post: Video ASMR artists can directly stimulate ASMR in viewers with gentle sounds, soft voices, and comforting visuals.
But they have been unable to directly stimulate the sensation of touch through a video. And touch may be the strongest trigger of ASMR.
Could there be a way to feel the touch of someone who is in another room or even in another country?
Yes.
Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada have designed gloves called Flex-N-Feel to be worn by individuals at separate locations. When one person Flexes their fingers in the gloves, the other person Feels the touch via vibrotactile sensations on their skin.
Alexa is a virtual assistant created by Amazon which runs on the Amazon Echo devices.
Users interact with Alexa by voice command to initiate many actions such as; set alarms, play music, podcasts, or audiobooks, create to-do lists, and inquire about the weather, traffic, news, and other information.
Until now, Alexa’s voice has been a spoken female voice, but Amazon has just added the ability for Alexa to whisper. Alexa will also be able to take a breath to pause for emphasis and adjust her rate, pitch and volume.
The Royal Geographical Society will be holding their Annual International Conference in London, from August 29 to September 1, 2017.
One of the sessions being planned for the conference is titled, “Soundscapes of Wellbeing”. This session will focus on the different ways in which people experience or perceive certain therapeutic benefits from interactions with sound.
And yes, they are interested in incorporating information about ASMR into this session from ASMR researchers.
This is exciting news for several reasons, including that this may be the first international conference to include ASMR on their agenda.
Libby Copeland lives in Westchester, NY, USA and has a BA degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA.
She has been a staff reporter, editor, and/or writer for The Washington Post, Slate, New York Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Glamour, as well as, made appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR.
Libby also has a strong interest in ASMR.
She recently traveled to Brooklyn, NY to experience one of the first live, in-person, professional ASMR services called Whisperlodge, and then wrote about it for New York Magazine.
ASMR University 