Short Wave - The Squishy Science Behind ASMR

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

The science is nascent and a little squishy, but researchers like Giulia Poerio are trying to better understand ASMR — a feeling triggered in the brains of some people by whispering, soft tapping, and delicate gestures. She explains how it works, and tells reporter Emily Kwong why slime might be an Internet fad that is, for some, a sensory pleasure-trigger.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Maddie Safaya here with our very own shortwave reporter and sometimes host Emily Kwong. Greetings, Emily Kwong. Today's episode is about ASM. I'm going to get out of whisper mode for a moment. Great. It was creeping me out. And explain me too with a quick story from a scientist in the UK named Julia. My name is Julia Puerreo. I am, God, I haven't thought about my age. I'm 31.

Julia is about to start lecturing at the University of Essex this winter. And she still remembers vividly being a little girl. And occasionally, she would get this very distinct feeling in certain situations. Really early examples would be things like watching my mum brush her hair or put her makeup on, getting my feet bit measured for school shoes, a teacher explaining something to me really carefully. And Maddie, in situations like these, she would enter this trance-like state. of relaxation. The feeling itself is a warm tingling sensation that starts at the crown of the head, almost like bubbles under the scalp. That's not where bubbles go. And can spread throughout the rest

of the body, so down the spine and through the limbs. That brain tingling feeling, experienced by some people, is called ASMR. Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a psychophysiological experience, reliably triggered by certain things like whispering, personal attention, soft voice, a whole host of things. So today on the show, ASMR researcher Julia Poirio helps us explain the science behind this sensation. And we ask,

does this have anything to do with the slime trend? Ousing across the internet? I don't like it. It's coming for you, Maddie, Sappiah. Maddie, yes, ma'am. Our tour guide through the world of ASMR is Julia Poirio. We're going to hear from her in a bit. She is a real-life person who experiences ASMR.

A real live one. And researches it. ASMR is not exactly a big field of scientific study. And it's only been a thing in public discussion for about a dozen years. That's about when in 2007, people began to find each other and build communities online, calling this feeling they had ASMR. So these people just, like, get really zend out by whispering? There's a whole host of different triggers for different people. It could be whispering.

Soft tapping. Rustling of paper. There seems to be a visual component to all of this, but not always. Things like slow movements, delicate hand gestures can induce an ASMR experience. One of the most popular ASM artists on YouTube, that's what the people who make these ASMR videos online are called, is ASMR darling. Here she is quietly touching a little house made of Legos with her fingernails. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Here she is unwrapping a starburst. Yeah, that is a starburst being unwrapped. My personal favorite, here she is counting down slowly in a whisper from a thousand. These videos, they get millions of views on YouTube. When you and I hear this, we hear it. But for some people, they feel it. And that's what happens for Julia and those who experience ASMR. It's a little bit like music-induced chills or awe-inspired chills.

So sometimes, you know, if you hear an amazing speech, like a Martin Luther King speech, you might get those kind of those goosebumps, those shivers up your spine, which is a really kind of complex, emotional, aesthetic response that some people experience and other people don't. So this is a young woman doing this, and you're like looking at her face and she's really close to the camera. It seems very intimate. Is this like, is this a second?

thing, Kwant? To be honest, that was my initial thought too. I don't experience ASMR, but Julia said, based on studies, she's done monitoring those who do. ASMR is not the feeling of getting turned on. In our research, we of course measured people's heart rates and on average, heart rate decreased when people watched ASMR videos, which is exactly the opposite of what you would expect if it was somehow a sexually arousing feeling. I don't know why, but that makes me feel better about it. It is. It's something else. So if it's not like this sexual feeling, what is it? Like in the brains of people who experience it, what's going on? We don't actually know what is happening, truly, in the brains of people who experience it, nor how many people experience it at all.

The important thing to know here is there isn't a ton of scientific research on this topic. There is one study, though, that really interested Julia. It's a 2016 paper by Canadian researchers that looked at the brains of people who experience ASMR when their brains were in a restful state, basically not doing anything. And they looked at this specific network within the brain. Something called the default mode network, which is associated with things like daydreaming and mind wandering and also self-referential thought. And what they found was that essentially that they thought that the brain network activity at rest shows that they're less able to inhibit sensory and emotional responses. Basically, they were like to.

less able to separate the link between what their senses are picking up and what they're feeling in their bodies. Sensory emotional experiences weren't as suppressed. Okay, that makes sense to me. They experience their senses in a different way than, like, I experience my senses or something like that. Kind of. Like I said, this is one of many early studies. And what's also interesting is how people are experimenting with new ASMR triggers on the internet. Remember the oozing I mentioned earlier?

Yeah, I remember that. It was unfortunate. I have with me in my hand something that produces sound, and I'm going to introduce it to you. Oh. You did have a nice little bit of flare. So what I'm holding in my hand is slime. Oh, my God. Flom, technically, slime with little foam pieces inside. Do you hear that?

Yeah, I can hear it. Well, in the last few years, there's been a boom in videos of people maneuvering. manipulating slime. Yeah. It'll have color or glitter or charms mixed into it. People have gotten very creative with their slimes. It's fun to play with, and it also has a sound. Not doing it for you?

No, it's not. It's doing something different. In fact, you are shrinking in your seat trying to get as far away from me as possible. I don't like it. Do you want to play with it? I mean, excuse you. Why did you give me the part one? I brought this in because if you search hashtag ASMR

on Instagram right now. Guess how many posts come up? Six. Seven point six million. Oh my God. And the vast, not a vast majority, but a number of them are videos of people doing exactly what you're doing right now, just manipulating slime and making these satisfying squishy sounds. Are there groups of people who experience anti-ASMR? Like instead of feeling soothed right now, I feel very unsettled And my belly hurts. That would be called misophonia, different episode. We wanted to ask our scientist, Julia, if slime is a bona fide trigger for ASMR. I mean, I guess that there are parallels.

Probably people who experience ASMR would experience ASMR when they're watching things like slime videos. However, one thing I would say is that actually there's been quite a lot of interlocking between different kind of trends. So ASMR and slime and things like McBang have all kind of... Side note, McBang started in South. South Korea, it broadcast people eating food while talking to their audience with high-quality microphones. What a nightmare. The internet. Slime and things like McBang have almost piggybacked onto the ASMR trend.

Sure. What under the sometimes category on the internet of oddly satisfying? Yeah. Or the hashtag ASMR because I suspect it is piggybacking on ASMR as a kind of term to get people to watch videos. So when you see a video of someone, let's say, cutting soap or icing their cookie, someone playing with really, pretty slime. That may be oddly satisfying, but if you don't have the brain tingles, it's not ASMR that's talking to you. At the same time, Julia said that the more ASMR is linked to things like slime videos, that could change what it means for people on the internet. She's focused, though,

on the world of science and has a lot of outstanding questions. Why do some people experience it? And others don't. Why do some people experience it at a higher intensity than others? And also, And this is really interesting to me. What is the effect of ASMR on sleep? So we know anecdotally that people who experience ASMR use these videos on YouTube to help them go to sleep. And I guess a question is, well, why does ASMR help you go to sleep? And another important question with regards to sleep is, you know, does it not only help you get to sleep, but does it also improve the quality of your sleep? So for some people, this might be like the modern day version of counting sheep.

sheep. Who says counting sheep? 1,99.99. Thanks again to Julia Poirio in the UK. And special thanks to Emmanuel Johnson and NPR's Vanessa Castillo for their help on this episode. And thank you, Emily Kwong, reporter for Shortwave here at NPR's Science Desk, and sometimes slimy host of Shortwave. You're welcome. I'm Maddie Safaya.

Come back tomorrow to hear my trip into the rainforest of Worm. Washington State, where we swing from the trees with a pioneering scientist who researches the canopy. It's a whole other world up there. And she wants to get more female scientists into it. That's tomorrow on Shortwave from NPR.