Research

*Participate now in research survey about ASMR and misophonia*

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityDr. Tammy Dempster has her BSc in Psychology and her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology.  She is currently researching ASMR and misophonia with colleagues at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK.

About a year ago she first learned about ASMR and quickly became fascinated in the topic.  She has now created an online research survey to begin collecting data to help progress the understanding of ASMR and to help guide further ASMR research projects.

In my interview with Dr. Dempster she shares how she first learned about ASMR, the objectives of her research study, some preliminary trends in the data collected so far, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, her replies in italics, and a link to her online research survey so you may participate.

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One man’s story of depression and his discovery of ASMR

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityRhys Baker is a first year journalism student at the University of Sussex, as well as a freelance writer and co-founder of the Hip-Hop brand theSTASHBOX.

He is also one of the millions of individuals in the world who struggles with major depressive disorder.

Rhys has experienced his depression since adolescence. He has tried several types of traditional and non-traditional therapies – but he was unable to achieve appropriate relief of his sadness.

Then he stumbled across ASMR by participating in a research study a few months ago. He has written an article about how he has felt more relief for his depression via ASMR than from other methods.

His story is not scientific evidence of the therapeutic value of ASMR.  His story is an anecdote, one expressed often on the internet, of how he feels ASMR helps him.  A thousand anecdotes does not create a fact, but a thousand anecdotes should catch the attention of researchers.

I share his story because it is one of many that should help to motivate researchers to pursue scientific investigations into the potential value of ASMR for health disorders.

I interviewed Rhys and he shared the history of his depression, how he learned about ASMR, what he would say to a room full of researchers, and more.

Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and a link to the story he wrote about his depression and his discovery of ASMR.

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*Participate now in research survey about ASMR and Personality Traits*

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ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityBeverley “Bev” Fredborg recently received her B.Sc. degree in Biopsychology from the University of Winnipeg in Canada. As part of a summer project, she is continuing an ASMR research project about personality traits which she was involved with as an undergraduate student.

I’ve reported on several students working on ASMR research projects previously, but this one has two important differences which demonstrate the progress of ASMR research.

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Neuroscience graduate student writes extensive scientific article about ASMR

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Kerin Higa is a student in the Neurosciences Graduate Program at University of California, San Diego.

She has published research about behavioral abnormalities in mouse models of psychiatric illness and is currently researching how mitochondrial dysfunction may be contribute to depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental health disorders.

Kerin also enjoys writing about science for the general public and science communities.

She has written for the “Gene-of-the-week” blog for biogps.org and is currently writing for the neuroscience blog, NeuWriteSD, which was founded by students in her graduate program. Her writing topics have included hoarding, dissociative identity disorder, and additional behavioral mysteries.

But the latest blog topic she tackled was the science of ASMR. Her in-depth article is titled “Technicalities of the tingles: the science of sounds that feel good. #ASMR” and was posted at the NeuWriteSD blog on June 11, 2015.

In my interview with Kerin she shares her love for Bob Ross, the five most important points in her article, helpful tips for writing about the science of ASMR, and more.

Below are my questions in bold followed by her replies in italics.

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Graduate student writes a theory paper about the ASMR community

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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

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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

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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.

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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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