I posted a prior article titled, “Participate in a research study about the role of ASMR in the service industry.”
Good news, the research study is completed and some results are now available.
The researcher was Vladimir Fedoseev, a graduate student pursuing his MBA at the Varna University of Management in Varna, Bulgaria (a partner university of Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales).
His dissertation focused on the involvement of ASMR in the service industry and is titled, “Effect of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) on Service User Experience”
He investigated how ASMR triggers, like soft speech, gentle sounds, careful hand movements, light touch, personal attention, and kind personalities, might effect experiences with hairdressers, doctors, hotel clerks, and others in the service industry.
In this second interview with Vladimir he reviews the details of his methods and shares some results of his research project.
One curious observation I noticed in his results is that gentle sounds, soft speech, and personal attention were the top triggers perceived by participants to cause ASMR in services, but the services with increasing reliance of light touch (like a hairdresser) showed increasing likelihood of stimulating ASMR. This could imply that light touch is a stronger contributor in service-mediated ASMR than the participants realized.
Below are my questions in bold, his replies in italics, and links to learn more about his research project.
ASMR University 