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College student creates mesmerizing animations for research project about synthetic ASMR triggers

/ Dr. Richard / 4 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityMarcus Nystrand is an undergraduate student in the Visual Communications program at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, Sweden.

For his graduation project he decided to create videos with synthetic ASMR triggers and survey if they are able to stimulate ASMR in viewers.

What are “synthetic ASMR triggers?”  Marcus created computer-generated animations that have some properties of ASMR triggers (e.g., movements, sounds) but without the presence of human forms (e.g., hands) or human objects (e.g., brushes).

In short, his project is asking, “Can non-human motions, items, and sounds trigger ASMR?”

His animations are extremely high quality,  very imaginative, and deeply mesmerizing.  Will they trigger your ASMR?

Read on to learn a bit more about his project, then click the link to view his amazing videos and answer his short survey questions.

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High school student investigating the effect of ASMR videos on teen anxiety and depression

/ Dr. Richard / 1 Comment

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityChristian 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.

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Interview with Dr Agnieszka Janik McErlean – lead author of the research study on ASMR triggers, personality, and empathy

/ Dr. Richard / 1 Comment

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityDr 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.

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Science of ASMR: The third peer-reviewed research publication (podcast episode #12)

/ Dr. Richard / 3 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian ResponseIn this podcast episode, I will be summarizing the third peer-reviewed research publication about ASMR and sharing an interview with the authors.

The paper is titled, ““An Examination of Personality Traits Associated with Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)”)” and was published in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology on February 23, 2017. The authors are Beverley Fredborg, Jim Clark, and Stephen Smith from the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.

This podcast episode will cover the following topics:

  • What are the personality traits associated with ASMR-sensitive individuals?
  • What are the most intense ASMR triggers?
  • How they recruited participants and determined ASMR sensitivity.
  • The focus of their next ASMR research publication.
  • and more.

Subscribe to the ASMR University Podcast to hear all of the past and future episodes or listen to this one episode right here:

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Participate now in a research study about ASMR, flow, tingles, and relaxation.

/ Dr. Richard / 3 Comments

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityAlfa Ramirez is pursuing her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Digital Cinema Arts at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, USA.

She completed a prior ASMR research project which I wrote about here in December 2016.

Alfa has obtained IRB approval for another ASMR research study and you can participate in her study by clicking the link to her survey (link is below).

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ASMR data from website polls (February 2016 update)

/ Dr. Richard / Leave a comment

ASMR Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response UniversityThis article is an update about the data collected by the polls on this website polls which are located HERE.

This updated summary has website poll data from about 1,100 individuals (about twice the amount since the last update).

This data is specific to the population of visitors to this website who take these 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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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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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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