[Science of ASMR]

Graduate student writes a theory paper about the ASMR community

/ Dr. Richard / Leave a comment

Shawn Watkins is a graduate student in the Communication department at Angelo State University located in Angelo, Texas.

He is interested in the cultural phenomenon of ASMR, including common themes and word meanings that have developed within the ASMR community. Shawn did a literature search on this topic and wrote up a paper about his perspectives and findings for one of his communication classes.

His paper investigates the ASMR community through the lens of Bormann’s Symbolic Convergence Theory.

He has agreed to share his paper and annotated bibliography to help others whom are researching ASMR or are trying to understand ASMR better. A link to his paper is included at the end of this post.

Shawn also agreed to answer some questions about his paper. He shares his inspiration for the paper, his favorite ASMR artist, his objectives for the paper, the most surprising thing he learned about ASMR, and more.

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

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Postdoctoral researcher at King’s College investigating the online culture of ASMR

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Dr. Rob Gallagher is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of English at King’s College in London. He has his Ph.D. in Humanities and Cultural Studies and is involved with a group research project investigating the influence of the internet on identities.

Dr. Gallagher is specifically looking into how the culture and language of ASMR developed, how people integrate ASMR experiences into their online identities, and how those who feel “tingles’ describe their experience.

Dr. Gallagher explains how interviewing ASMR artists gave him great insight into the art of ASMR, gives examples of how the media and academics approach ASMR differently, and shares information about a forthcoming podcast about ASMR.

Below are my questions in bold, followed by his replies in italics.

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Could ASMR be used at work to decrease stress?

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The workplace can be a stressful environment for most professions.  Work-related stress can result in poor performance, job dissatisfaction, and missed workdays.

One field that struggles constantly with job-related stress is health care, especially for those who work in surgical Intensive Care Units (ICU).

The word “intensive” is practically a synonym for the word “stress”.

Here is a crazy experiment: give these ICU workers one hour off in the middle of their workday to meditate, perform yoga, enjoy relaxing music, and watch soothing ASMR videos – then see if that helps their stress.

Well, one team of researchers almost did that exact experiment and just published the results in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

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Part 4: The first peer-reviewed publication about ASMR: Interview with the authors

/ Dr. Richard / 6 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityThis is Part 4, and the conclusion, of my blog post series on the first peer-reviewed paper about ASMR.

As a refresher, the paper is titled, “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR): a flow-like mental state”. It was published on March 26th, 2015 in the journal PeerJ.

This post is an interview with the authors of the paper, Emma Barratt and Nick Davis.

Dr. Nick Davis has his PhD in Psychology from the University of Birmingham (UK) and is currently working in the Department of Psychology at Swansea University (UK) as a Lecturer in Psychology.

Ms Emma Barratt is the lead author of the paper and has her MSc in Abnormal and Clinical Psychology from Swansea University (Wales).

The authors share their inspirations for beginning the research, challenges with writing the paper, and Ms. Barratt finds out a shocking fact about her co-author.

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ASMR research publication helps ASMR artist to keep his YouTube channel

/ Dr. Richard / 4 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversitySensorAdi (his online identity, not his real name) is an ASMR artist on YouTube. He has been creating and posting ASMR videos on his channel “SensorAdi ASMR” since 2013.

He has posted over 150 soothing videos of himself painting, making gentle brushing sounds, softly scratching and tapping on wood, walking through leaves, and performing relaxing clinical role-plays.

It is obvious from the comments that most of his YouTube followers find his videos helpful for relaxing and falling asleep.  A comment on his most popular video from one viewer reflects the sentiments from most other viewers, “I had to listen to this right before I went to sleep and I am at complete ease and peaceful.”

He told me that one viewer even wrote to him from the hospital to let him know that his videos were helpful to him while he was getting treatment for an infection.

Knowing that his videos are helpful to others is important to SensorAdi, “It is very nice and motivating feeling to me.”

But SensorAdi is not just an ASMR artist, he is also a school teacher in Poland.

He has been teaching High School students (ages 15-19) in his current position for the past 7 years.  I asked him what makes him a good teacher and he replied, “I am honest, authentic.  I am interested in the issues and problems of students.”

Recently though, SensorAdi has had his own issues and problems.

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Part 3: The first peer-reviewed publication about ASMR: Meaning of the data & next steps.

/ Dr. Richard / 7 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityThis is Part 3 of my blog post series on the first peer-reviewed paper about ASMR.

As a refresher, the paper is titled, “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR): a flow-like mental state”.  It was authored by Emma Barratt and Nick Davis and was published on March 26th, 2015 in the journal PeerJ.

This post is going to focus on the meaning of some of the data, as well as highlight how future studies could build on the helpful foundation provided by the authors of this paper.

This post is mostly for students and researchers looking for ASMR research ideas.  Just look for the sections in this post marked “Next steps” for potential ASMR research projects you could do.

Let’s begin by reviewing and understanding the methods and the participants, this will help to keep the overall meaning of the data in an appropriate scope.

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Part 2: The first peer-reviewed publication about ASMR: Significance of the paper

/ Dr. Richard / 6 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityThis is Part 2 of my blog post series on the first peer-reviewed paper about ASMR.

As a refresher, the paper is titled, “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR): a flow-like mental state”.  It was authored by Emma Barratt and Nick Davis and was published on March 26th, 2015.

This post is going to focus on the significance of this first peer-reviewed research paper about ASMR.

Lets begin with asking: what does it mean when a paper is “peer-reviewed?”

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Part 1: The first peer-reviewed publication about ASMR: Summary of the data

/ Dr. Richard / 10 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityThe first peer-reviewed paper about ASMR has been published in the journal PeerJ.

I am highly excited about this event and very proud of the authors of this paper.

The paper is titled, “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR): a flow-like mental state” and is authored by Emma Barratt and Nick Davis. The authors are members of the Department of Psychology at Swansea University in the United Kingdom.

The publication was officially published as a peer-reviewed publication on March 26, 2015, but was initially published as a “PrePrint” on December 18, 2014.

The study was reviewed and approved by the Swansea University Department of Psychology Ethics Committee prior to the initiation of data collection.

This is such an important achievement that I will cover this event in several blog posts. This first post will simply focus on summarizing the data in the publication.

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The influence of ASMR on sleep quality: a new and simple tool.

/ Dr. Richard / Leave a comment

One of the best compliments someone can give to a new discovery is, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I just read about a new research tool which deserves that compliment.

A group of scientists have recently published a paper in the journal PLOS ONE which describes a simple way to measure sleep quality.

Their simple idea could make research studies on the influence of ASMR on sleep quality much easier than current research methods.

This new method is so simple that I can describe it in two words:

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Can you actually experience “touch” while watching an ASMR video?

/ Dr. Richard / 5 Comments

Sue Dorrens, founder of the “I Love ASMR” facebook page asked me a question related to ASMR videos.

She wondered why our brains perceive a fake stimulus as a real stimulus.

In particular, she wondered why someone can watch a video of someone pretending to touch their head (e.g., hair salon role-play or facial massage role-play) and then have a relaxing response as if someone actually had touched their head.

This is a great question and I have three possible explanations.

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