WEBVTT
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Okay, okay. How about this? Hey, hey, how's it going?
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Get a little closer to the microphone.
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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus
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from Gimlet.
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Do, do, do, do, do.
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This is the show that pits facts against feeling tingly.
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Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
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Is that right?
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Am I doing it right?
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Yes, absolutely. Yes.
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Hey, it's so fun. On today's show, ASMR. If you
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don't know what it is, it's this massive trend where
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you watch videos of people whispering or making soft sounds.
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And you're supposed to get this lovely bodily reaction. And
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the person coaching me here is Mike Bryant. He's a
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vocal instructor who makes ASMR videos and goes by Velvet Whisperer.
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His friend suggested the name.
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I had no idea what I should use. And so
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he's like, well, based off the tone of your voice,
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it kind of has a velvet quality to it.
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What did you think when your friend was like, you
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have a velvety tone to your voice?
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You know, I take that as a compliment.
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The first time that Mike heard about this weird ASMR
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world was back in 2015. At the time, Mike was
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really stressed out about work and having a lot of
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trouble getting to sleep. So one day, a friend texted
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him a link to a video that he thought would help.
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You know, when he said, watch this video tonight, I
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automatically just assumed, okay, maybe it's something like nature sounds
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or ocean sounds. You know, something that people typically do
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to relax. When I pulled up the video and a
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woman popped up on the screen and she was whispering.
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Good evening.
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This video is going to be.
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Dedicated At first I was like, what is this? This
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is not what I was expecting. But ironically, even in
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the moment of me kind of questioning, like, what is this?
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In like the first 10 minutes or so, I started
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to feel so relaxed. But then I had this other
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element of this tingles. The closest thing I can think
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of is like goosebumps, but it's not goosebumps though. It's
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something different.
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Like a high almost.
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Like literally feels like it's at the top of my
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head and then it just starts to kind of immerse
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throughout my body. Almost like raindrops that are just like
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coming down. It felt new, but it also kind of
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felt familiar. I feel really content right now. And if
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I was stressed before, not in this moment. But the
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video was like an hour long and I didn't make
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it all the way through. I fell asleep. It was
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the best sleep I had in so long. And I
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woke up with my headphones kind of like twisted or whatever,
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like much later. So then I was hooked. Like I
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was watching ASMR every night.
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It kind of blew his mind. And this tingles thing
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was so amazing that he just had to get more
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of it. And when he looked through the comments of
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that video... he realized that lots of people were feeling
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this way. Writing stuff like, ooh, wow, so many ASMR tingles. Amazing.
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And here's another one. I can't express how much you
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help me relax. Infinite tingles. Some people go even further,
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saying that these videos help them when they're feeling sad
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or anxious. A few months later, Mike decided to start
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making these ASMR videos himself. He'd found this thing with
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this magical effect and he wanted to pay it forward.
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He likes doing role play in his videos, like he'll
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pretend to be a dermatologist and will sit down in
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front of the camera and talk to you.
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So glad that you could make it here today.
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How was your commute over?
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Was it all right?
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And so Mike became part of this big trend. Fast
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forward to today and ASMR is huge. YouTube told us
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that last year ASMR-related videos were viewed more than 65
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billion times. It's one of the most searched terms on YouTube.
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Which is now crawling with ASMR artists.
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Whispering.
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Squishing slime. And tapping microphones with long fingernails. It's now
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so mainstream that companies are using it. Like here's an
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ad from KFC.
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Enjoy the gentle sound of deep frying chicken. Pretty relaxing, huh?
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Even the Texas Department of Health made a pandemic PSA
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using ASMR. And behind all of this hype is a
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very puzzling scientific question. How can listening to a rando
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on YouTube whispering give someone like Mike all of these
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emotional and physical feelings, like goosebumps and tingling on his head?
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What exactly is happening? Like if I pull a piece
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of hair off, the piece of hair has been detached
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from my skin and I felt a prickle. That seems
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to be so logical to me. But just to be
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hearing an ASMR video and that's saying I know raindrop
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sensations and now I'm content and I don't know. Like,
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what is happening?
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And then on the flip side, there's people who can't
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stand this stuff. Having someone go, this podcast is dedicated
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to you. Is less gentle raindrops and more acid rain.
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So what's going on there? Today on the show, we
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have some of the very first studies into this weird
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phenomenon and some clues as to what is actually happening
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in your body and your brain as you get these tingles.
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And by the way, you should stick around even if
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you've never felt this.
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Because we're going to give you lots of opportunities to try.
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When it comes to ASMR, there's a lot of what
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is happening. But then there's science. Science versus ASMR is
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coming up just after the break. Welcome back. Today, we're
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diving into this thing called ASMR. And the first thing
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you need to know about this phenomenon is that the
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name ASMR is meaningless.
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So it stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
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Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
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That's Julia Puerro at the University of Essex in the
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UK chatting to our producer, Meryl Horne. And Julia says
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that even though this term, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, sounds fancy...
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It was actually just made up by someone who was
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one of the first people to talk about this tingly
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feeling online.
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And I think her intention was to make it sound
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more scientific because people were calling it brain tingles or
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braingasms and things like that. So she wanted to kind
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of legitimize it, I think, by, you know, giving it
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a scientific sounding name. but it doesn't really have any
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basis in science.
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Because it doesn't make any sense.
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Because it doesn't make any sense.
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Like, take meridian. In science, it means a lot of things.
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The prime meridian is a longitudinal line that connects the
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North and South Poles. It's also a thing in Chinese medicine.
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But the person who picked that word just wanted a
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word that was less sexual than braingasm. And meridian also means...
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prosperity and splendour. But just because the name ASMR is
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a bit silly, it doesn't mean that the feeling is.
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In fact, Julia, who studies this phenomenon, has felt it
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ever since she was a kid.
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Somebody once described it, and I thought this was a
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really good description, as somebody opening like a can of
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Coke and like pouring it on your scalp, that kind
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of fizzy, tingling stuff.
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And when Julia was growing up, there was no hype
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around ASMR. No YouTube at all, in fact. And she
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actually had no idea what she was feeling. But every
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now and then, out in the wild, she'd get those tingles.
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A really distinct memory for me was when I was about,
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I don't know, about 17 or 18 or something like that.
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But I basically, I signed up for a credit card
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by accident in a bank because... Because the person there
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was so relaxing. She was very soft-spoken, so I ended
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up just wanting to continue the conversation because I was
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so relaxed by her. So I basically signed up for
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this credit card, which I didn't.
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Need or want.
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It was like you were in a trance?
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Yeah, pretty much.
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Julia didn't know that this happened to anyone else, and
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she didn't really talk about it either. That was until
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something happened, something that would make Julia want to study this.
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So one day she was at a conference and that feeling,
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it happened again. One of the speakers had this particular
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soft-spoken voice and it gave Julia the tingles. But this
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time she mentioned it to a colleague who said, oh yeah,
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I just heard a story about this on the radio,
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about people watching videos of someone folding towels and then
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having these lovely reactions.
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And I think I had that kind of light bulb
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moment of that, that is the thing. And so that
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night I went home, I traveled home. And I was
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searching for it.
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So I was just.
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Typing like tingling and stuff like that into Google and
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news articles. And then I found the term ASMR. And
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then what I did was I typed it into YouTube.
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And then I spent about three or four hours watching
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ASMR videos on YouTube. And I was like, this is
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the best thing ever. And then after that, I thought, oh, gosh, well,
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if it's got a name, then presumably people are researching this.
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Julia was thinking that someone had to be studying this.
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So she goes searching the literature and finds basically nothing.
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I thought that there would be research on it and
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there wasn't. So that's why I kind of did something
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because I felt like something needed to be done.
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So Julia did something. She decided to set up one
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of the first experiments out there into ASMR. And she
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wanted to look at what was happening in the body
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of someone who was experiencing these tingles. So she brought
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a bunch of people into the lab, both those who
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experience ASMR, and from here on in, we're going to
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call them the tinglers, and those who don't experience it.
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So everybody was in a cubicle that had no windows,
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and it just had a computer screen, the physiology equipment,
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and things like that.
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And she showed them all some regular videos and some
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tingly videos. like this one of a woman folding towels.
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Today I'm going to show you different techniques of how
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to fold washcloths, hand towels.
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Julia put some sensors on them to measure things like
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their heart rate. And then it was game time, which
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meant leaving the person alone to watch the videos.
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It's mainly if you want the boring details waiting around.
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And it's very slow. So it took us a really
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long time to test all these people.
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Julia ran over 100 people through this ASMR assembly line.
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And here's what she saw. First off, when the tinglers
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watched their videos, their heart rates went down. And that
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was compared to the non-tinglers.
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So we found an average decrease of 3.41 beats per minute.
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About three beats per minute. That's the same response that
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we see from stuff like listening to relaxing music. Julia
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also put little sensors on people's fingertips, which measured something
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called skin conductance, which is a way that scientists can
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tell how excited you're getting. And it does this by
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measuring sweat.
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It's very subtle, so it can pick up kind of
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very small changes. So you don't need to be sort
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of dripping with sweat. In fact, that would probably be
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not very good because the senses might fall off in
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that case. But it is an indicator that something physiologically,
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emotionally is going on.
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Now, Julia thought that because ASMR is this uber relaxing sensation,
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that their skin measurements would show that people were getting
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less excited. But that's not what happened. people actually got
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a little bit sweatier, which is odd because remember, she
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also found that their heart rates went down. And usually
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you don't think about those two things going together, like
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increased sweating and decreased heart rate. If you go for
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a run or you have to give a presentation at work,
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in those cases, generally they're both going up. Your heart
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rate ramps up and you sweat more. But in Julia's study,
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With ASMR, that'll seem jumbled.
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What we think might be happening is that tingling sensation
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itself is a bit activating, but overall ASMR is very relaxing.
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Now, this is just one study and Julia is testing
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this more. But if she's right, ASMR isn't just about
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feeling purely relaxed or euphoric. It's this complicated dance between
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different emotions that's changing over time. In 2018, Julia published
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the first study looking at what's happening in the bodies
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of tinglers. And in it, she wrote that for the
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first time, they'd found physiological evidence for the ASMR experience.
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Soon after, another paper came out showing that tinglers' pupils
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dilate while they're getting this ASMR response. And that also
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seems to happen when you get the chills from listening
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to really great music. Okay, so as a recap, here's
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Julia's study as we interpreted it through ASMR. You know,
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with the heartbeat and the sweating and the tingles.
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Today I'm going to show you different techniques of how
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to fold washcloths, hand towels, and speak about towels too.
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I'm also going to show you the two ways of
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how to incorporate all three of them into and make
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them look into sense.
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And while Julia was measuring sweat and heartbeats... Other pioneering
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ASMR researchers were focusing on a different organ altogether, the brain.
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And now we have our first ever picture of what
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is happening inside our head as we get the tingles.
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And it's... Oh, pure magic. Just pure magic.
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That is coming up just after the break. Hey, it's
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Wendy from Science Versus, and I want to tell you
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about a podcast that I love, Science Friday. They cover
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all sorts of amazing things in the weird and wonderful
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world of science, from how concussions affect our brain to
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the inner secrets of a snake with a spider on
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its tail. Welcome back. We just learned that when people
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experience ASMR, it looks like there's this anomalous mix of
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relaxation and excitement going through their body. But what is
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happening inside their brains? This is something that Bryson Lochte,
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who's now a psychiatry resident at UCLA, was jonesing to
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find out. Several years ago, back when he was still
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a student, He wanted to chuck some tinglers into an
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MRI machine while they were all tingly to see what
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the devil was going on in there. And at first,
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he was worried that people wouldn't be able to get
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the tingles while they were in an MRI. He chatted
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about it with Meryl.
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You're in this tube, kind of like a big plastic
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tube with a really powerful magnet surrounding you. It's like
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a really noisy machine. It's kind of like the sound
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of being in a big dumpster and someone's like hitting
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it with like a chain or something, you know.
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Like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
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Yeah, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
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Yeah, it sounds like that.
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Bryson just had to hope that this ASMR feeling was
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stronger than all that banging going on. So he and
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his colleagues slid their first tingler into the tube and
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there was a screen where a video played. A video
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that was actually quite similar to the one in Julia's study. Literally, again,
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someone was folding a towel.
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Hi guys, I'm going to be folding some towels.
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What is it with these people and folding towels? They
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watched other videos too, where ASM artists stare straight into
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the camera and sometimes it feels like they almost reach
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out to the listeners. And so the tinglers were listening
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to all these whispers through headphones and And meanwhile, they
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held a little device with some buttons on it. There
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was one to press if they just felt relaxed and
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a different button to press if they felt the tingles.
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So the idea was that they would play the video
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and then the person in the machine would let the
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researchers know with the click of a button. Hey, I'm
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feeling relaxed. Or, ooh, I'm getting the tingles. Bryson would
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watch on a monitor as all of this happened. And
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he could see that people were pushing the tingles button.
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Despite this weird setting, the tingles were coming through.
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It was a big relief, to be honest.
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It worked.
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Yeah.
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I was very excited by it.
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This is Craig Richard, a professor of physiology over at
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Shenandoah University. And he ultimately teamed up with Bryson. and
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remembered seeing all these brain scans capturing the elusive tingles.
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Seeing the data was just so exciting because it helped
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explain the potential mechanism behind ASMR. So yeah, I was
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super giddy.
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What did you think was going on in the brain,
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you know, when people had tingles?
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Oh, pure magic. Just pure magic.
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But through these brain scans... He could see that what
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was happening wasn't just magic. Because even though this was
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a small study, just 10 tinglers, he could see that
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there were these very particular areas of the brain lighting
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up when people got that special sensation. And it helped
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explain what was going on here. Like the nucleus accumbens,
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which is a little nugget in the centre of your brain.
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And it's kind of like the happiness detector.
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Yeah.
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It gets activated when.
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You're riding your bike and you're enjoying it. You're eating
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your favorite food. Someone gives you $ 5. These are all
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lovely little moments. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's likely
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that your nucleus accumbens is going to light up during
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moments just like those.
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Another thing that caught Craig's eye was how ASMR seemed
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to activate a big slice of brain that's shaped like
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a rainbow. It's called the somatosensory cortex. And generally speaking,
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it lights up when someone touches you. Like, if someone
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strokes your cheek, there's a little chunk of your somatosensory
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cortex that's dedicated to cheek touching. And when watching these videos,
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that part of the brain lit up, as well as
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some other areas, like the forehead part of your somatosensory cortex.
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And this was actually a bit weird, because no one
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was touching the tinglers' cheeks or their foreheads. or any
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part of them at all. They're just watching a video.
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But to Craig, it made sense. Because in a lot
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of the videos.
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The artists in the videos were pretending to touch the viewer.
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It's simply that if hands are coming at you, whether
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it's on a video screen or it's in real life,
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your brain responds as if you're getting touched. People perceived
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fake touch as somewhat slightly as real touch. So the
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brain is somewhat easy to trick.
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For those of us who don't experience this ASMR thing,
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Craig says, think about it like when you watch a
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scary movie.
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You might jump out of your seat. There's no threat
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to you when you're watching a horror movie, but you
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feel scared and you might cover your eyes and you
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might jump out of your seat.
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Another study came out last year using EEGs to look
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at people experiencing ASMR, and it also showed activation in
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that same area of the brain. So Craig says, feeling
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like we're being touched, that might be part of the
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tingly feeling. But there was another clue in the data
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to help explain what was going on. These ASMRtists... They're
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looking at you gently.
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They're moving slowly. They're speaking in a caring way and
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they're looking at you in a caring way. And that
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all triggers your brain to respond like, oh, this is
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a caring person. I think I'll be relaxed. And you
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might even feel so relaxed that you fall asleep.
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Zooming out a little, Craig thinks that this ASMR feeling
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is tapping into a super important brain response that has
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nothing to do with towels and tapping. It kicks in
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when you're around someone you love and someone who cares
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for you. Researchers call it affiliative behavior, and it's associated
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with certain brain areas lighting up. Like these particular parts
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of the brain seem to go berserk when you put
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parents in a brain scanner and show them pictures of
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their little squirts. And yeah, Craig saw those areas of
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the brain lighting up as people were getting the tingles.
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Two surveys of tinglets have found that personal attention is
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one of the most common triggers to getting tingles. And
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Craig says that doesn't always mean that someone is staring
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at the camera and folding towels for you.
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So there are... a lot of ASMR videos that you
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don't see the person's face. All you're seeing them do
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is they might be, you just see their hands doing something.
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They might be solving a Rubik's cube. They might be
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raking a little Zen garden very carefully. And so that
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doesn't appear like it's this positive personal interaction, except for
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your brain knows those hands are attached to a person.
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And whoever this person is, is taking time out from
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their day to show you something that is important to them.
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So it makes sense for our brains to feel like, wow,
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this person really cares for me.
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Or they're just making money off you. But no matter,
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that's probably not what you're thinking about in the moment
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while you're watching these videos. Craig Records, there's just something
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about watching someone very carefully make fun sounds just for you.
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that hijacks this affiliative brain network. But it's not like
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this explains everything here. Because I don't know about you,
401
00:25:46.509 --> 00:25:49.549
but I don't feel all tingly in real life when
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00:25:49.589 --> 00:25:54.410
someone's taking care of me. Like it's nice, but these tingles?
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00:25:56.230 --> 00:26:01.089
Still though. This story rang true for Mike, our velvet whisperer,
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00:26:01.109 --> 00:26:02.789
who you heard from at the start of the show.
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Mike had that big question about tingles, wondering what's happening
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there and why do we get them? And so we
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told him about this idea that it could be our
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brains getting a bit tricked and we see these videos
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and feel like someone is touching us and taking care
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of us. And as we told him all this, he
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had a bit of a Ratatouille moment.
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That did just kind of unlock a memory.
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I remember.
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when I was like eight or nine, it was during
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the summertime when I wasn't in school. So my mom
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would have my grandmother watch me while she went off
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to work. And so when she would drive up, park
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the car, and I was asleep, she would wrap me
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in a blanket.
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Was I eight years old?
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Maybe I was younger. I'm not sure. But anyway, she
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would wrap me in a blanket, pick me up, and
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carry me into my grandmother's house. And I remember feeling
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so I don't like comforted. There was something about this
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euphoric or like pleasant sensation of her doing that. And
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so once I caught on to it, I would fake
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sleep every time to make sure that she did it
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when she was carrying me. hearing her feet like hit
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the cement, you know, because those are like sounds that
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are around me.
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The tapping.
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Right, exactly.
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The tapping, exactly.
434
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Yeah.
435
00:27:17.579 --> 00:27:17.960
Wow.
436
00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:20.700
So that was like your first ASMR experience, maybe.
437
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:21.900
Yeah, that has to be it.
438
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:23.369
So, okay, wow.
439
00:27:23.380 --> 00:27:23.920
Okay, yeah.
440
00:27:24.609 --> 00:27:26.349
So mystery solved for me in a sense.
441
00:27:26.390 --> 00:27:27.009
Yeah, I love that.
442
00:27:27.109 --> 00:27:27.630
I love that.
443
00:27:27.650 --> 00:27:36.970
So here's where we're at. That tingly sensation, it is real.
444
00:27:37.410 --> 00:27:42.309
Scientists can see it in brain and body scans. But Scooby,
445
00:27:43.289 --> 00:27:47.279
there's one final mystery we need to solve. I asked
446
00:27:47.299 --> 00:27:51.740
Craig about it. Do you think that everyone can experience it?
447
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:56.059
It does not appear. Well, I could be more confident
448
00:27:56.099 --> 00:27:56.400
than that.
449
00:27:56.960 --> 00:27:57.119
No.
450
00:27:58.619 --> 00:27:59.259
Right.
451
00:27:59.519 --> 00:27:59.940
There you go.
452
00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:04.589
Nailed that question. No, I don't think everyone can experience
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it because we do hear so frequently that of people
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that will watch ASMR videos, they've tried a bunch, and
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they don't experience it. And they really want to.
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Surveys have tried to get at how many people feel this.
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The largest we could find wasn't an academic study, but
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it was done by a French online streaming service. 12,000
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people responded from six countries. And about a quarter said
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that they felt something like goosebumps or tingles. Another quarter
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felt calm and relaxed. Another quarter felt nothing. And then
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00:28:42.579 --> 00:28:46.460
there was something we haven't talked about yet. There were
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00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:51.940
those that hated it. Yeah, when listening to ASMR triggers,
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00:28:52.420 --> 00:28:57.660
about one in five felt annoyed or irritated. Sorry if
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that's you. Also, I'm amazed you're still listening to this podcast.
466
00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:06.309
It's so curious. Like, Why do the same or, for
467
00:29:06.329 --> 00:29:10.829
the most part, many similar stimuli? And some people are like, oh,
468
00:29:11.049 --> 00:29:14.230
cool me to sleep with your sweet mouth sounds. And
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00:29:14.390 --> 00:29:16.849
other people want to rip your face off if you
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00:29:16.869 --> 00:29:18.069
make those sweet mouth sounds.
471
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.539
There's been a few studies that have tried to get
472
00:29:22.619 --> 00:29:27.059
at this question. Some look at personality differences between tinglers
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and non-tinglers. And they have found some differences. Like tinglers
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00:29:32.299 --> 00:29:36.309
might be more open to experiences or more artistic on average.
475
00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:40.960
They also might be less likely to be conscientious. that
476
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:44.759
is not so concerned with deadlines or attention to detail
477
00:29:45.539 --> 00:29:49.019
so hermione is less likely to be a tingler than
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ron but even the nerds who do these studies say
479
00:29:53.420 --> 00:29:55.859
it's early days and not to read too much into
480
00:29:55.900 --> 00:30:01.220
this funnily enough the best explanation that we could find
481
00:30:01.859 --> 00:30:07.700
suggests that tinglers are just more generally sensitive to their environment. Like,
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00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:11.730
they're more sensitive to bright lights or loud noises. So
483
00:30:11.789 --> 00:30:15.490
it's sort of a double-edged sword. In fact, research finds
484
00:30:15.650 --> 00:30:19.029
that tinglers are also more likely to experience the flip
485
00:30:19.049 --> 00:30:25.650
side of ASMR, called misophonia, hating sound. Like, perhaps they'll
486
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love hearing certain kinds of noises. like the gentle folding
487
00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:37.180
of a towel. But they'll hate other noises. And Craig,
488
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:39.660
who is a tingler, says that if you hit him
489
00:30:39.700 --> 00:30:43.460
with the wrong ASMR video, it'll drive him up the wall.
490
00:30:44.809 --> 00:30:49.769
It seems like there's a fine line between cringing and tingling.
491
00:30:50.849 --> 00:30:54.930
And we were curious where that line was. So we
492
00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:58.829
decided to try something that we know Some of you hate.
493
00:30:59.869 --> 00:31:13.279
Meryl brought out some crackers. All right, I'm going to start. Ew,
494
00:31:13.470 --> 00:31:14.480
I didn't like that one.
495
00:31:14.660 --> 00:31:16.519
Oh, yeah. Follow it up with a slurp and a gulp.
496
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:18.920
Exactly.
497
00:31:18.980 --> 00:31:21.599
And I agree with Wendy. The worst moment there for me,
498
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.140
it was the big lip smack at the end. That.
499
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:28.440
is where you turned me. You turned me right there.
500
00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:32.700
So there's ASMR style eating, which is what you started doing.
501
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:35.099
Yeah, right. I felt like I didn't feel the tingles,
502
00:31:35.160 --> 00:31:38.059
but I was like, oh, that's actually quite nice. Like crunch, crunch, crunch.
503
00:31:38.920 --> 00:31:43.259
Yeah. But once you start smacking and chewing loudly, that
504
00:31:43.299 --> 00:31:46.859
turns into mukbang style. So mukbang are those videos where
505
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:49.920
people have piles of food and they just sit there
506
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:51.619
and they eat the food from the video and they
507
00:31:51.660 --> 00:31:55.589
tend to chew with their mouth open making loud smacking noises.
508
00:31:56.329 --> 00:31:59.829
There are people who love that and may experience ASMR
509
00:32:00.130 --> 00:32:04.519
to those exaggerated mouth sounds. It's just like food. I
510
00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:07.220
may not like this apple pie, but oh, I like
511
00:32:07.299 --> 00:32:09.240
this apple pie made by someone else.
512
00:32:12.460 --> 00:32:16.740
So scientists are just starting to unfold what's happening with
513
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:21.019
this tingly feeling. And it looks like if you're watching
514
00:32:21.059 --> 00:32:25.349
these videos, It might get you excited by tingling the
515
00:32:25.390 --> 00:32:27.569
part of your brain that makes you feel like you're
516
00:32:27.589 --> 00:32:31.289
being cared for. Or it might make you want to
517
00:32:31.450 --> 00:32:34.769
throw your laptop out the window. And we're not exactly
518
00:32:34.869 --> 00:32:38.609
sure why that is. In fact, there's lots of questions
519
00:32:38.690 --> 00:32:43.109
that we still have about ASMR. Like, researchers are wondering
520
00:32:43.289 --> 00:32:46.490
if it could help some people who have anxiety or depression.
521
00:32:47.579 --> 00:32:48.759
We don't have much science there.
522
00:32:48.779 --> 00:32:48.859
Also.
523
00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:54.089
Lots of tinklers say that they start to get desensitized
524
00:32:54.150 --> 00:32:57.569
to this after a while. It gets harder and harder
525
00:32:57.650 --> 00:33:02.900
to feel the magic. Why is that? We don't know.
526
00:33:04.619 --> 00:33:07.859
But if you are just starting out on your ASMR adventure,
527
00:33:10.279 --> 00:33:12.440
how do you find out if you're a tinkler or not?
528
00:33:13.099 --> 00:33:17.599
Go to YouTube, put in ASMR, and treat it like
529
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:18.079
a buffet.
530
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.680
And this was me and Meryl. Before we started making
531
00:33:21.700 --> 00:33:25.480
this episode, we actually didn't know if we could experience ASMR.
532
00:33:26.180 --> 00:33:29.240
So we decided to hit the buffet. I gave it
533
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:33.009
a go, starting with the old classic. The first thing
534
00:33:33.170 --> 00:33:36.309
is relaxing towel folding tutorial.
535
00:33:36.809 --> 00:33:37.190
Hello.
536
00:33:38.529 --> 00:33:40.089
Welcome to another towel folding.
537
00:33:40.109 --> 00:33:42.049
Okay, no, this is too ridiculous. No, no, no, no, no.
538
00:33:42.269 --> 00:33:42.930
Okay, towel.
539
00:33:43.109 --> 00:33:43.450
I can't.
540
00:33:43.730 --> 00:33:44.690
Okay, next one.
541
00:33:44.730 --> 00:33:47.670
What I'll be doing in this video is a hand
542
00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:48.539
motion video.
543
00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:51.960
I don't like this one.
544
00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:53.380
Hello, my.
545
00:33:55.019 --> 00:33:55.880
Beautiful humans.
546
00:33:55.960 --> 00:33:59.700
No, no, no, no, no, no.
547
00:33:59.859 --> 00:34:00.849
No, no, no, no, no, no.
548
00:34:01.609 --> 00:34:03.569
But Meryl hit the jackpot.
549
00:34:04.369 --> 00:34:07.930
I think I just experienced ASMR for the first time.
550
00:34:07.950 --> 00:34:16.389
I'm looking at this video, and there's this woman who has.
551
00:34:17.409 --> 00:34:17.489
I.
552
00:34:17.489 --> 00:34:21.329
Think it's just cardboard. It's like she has long fingernails
553
00:34:21.409 --> 00:34:26.369
and she's tapping it on this little circle of cardboard.
554
00:34:27.329 --> 00:34:34.900
And it's like, I just got weirdly happy. Like, I'm smiling.
555
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:36.980
I do feel some tingles.
556
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:40.619
I feel really good.
557
00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:40.719
Okay.
558
00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:45.989
If that meant.
559
00:34:48.010 --> 00:34:52.070
There's someone tapping their nails on a phone or something
560
00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:58.159
and like sweeping their hands like. And I'm really sleepy now.
561
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:05.170
I'm actually going to go to sleep.
562
00:35:17.889 --> 00:35:18.780
That's science versus.
563
00:35:24.349 --> 00:35:24.809
Hello.
564
00:35:25.230 --> 00:35:27.550
Hey, Meryl Horne, producer at Science Versus.
565
00:35:27.750 --> 00:35:28.309
Hi, Wendy.
566
00:35:28.590 --> 00:35:30.269
How many citations in this week's episode?
567
00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:31.730
There's 73 citations.
568
00:35:31.730 --> 00:35:32.409
73.
569
00:35:32.409 --> 00:35:35.650
Yep. And if people want to find these citations, where
570
00:35:35.670 --> 00:35:36.110
should they go?
571
00:35:36.130 --> 00:35:39.090
They can go to our show notes and then follow.
572
00:35:38.869 --> 00:35:40.150
The links to the transcript.
573
00:35:40.449 --> 00:35:42.800
And then you can also head to our Instagram where
574
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.980
you can see Wendy's debut as an ASMR artist and
575
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.300
an amazing little sand sculpture that our producer Michelle Dang made.
576
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:56.650
Yeah, yeah. It's fun and embarrassing. The sand sculpture is fun.
577
00:35:56.809 --> 00:36:00.969
The ASMR is embarrassing. Yes, and if you have any
578
00:36:01.010 --> 00:36:03.449
questions for me, you can shoot me a tweet at
579
00:36:03.809 --> 00:36:06.800
Wendy Zook. Z-U-K. Yeah. Yeah.
580
00:36:07.059 --> 00:36:13.500
Can you say bye-bye? Bye-bye.
581
00:36:13.539 --> 00:36:13.840
Bye-bye.
582
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:14.000
Bye.
583
00:36:14.019 --> 00:36:14.099
Bye.
584
00:36:23.739 --> 00:36:26.340
This episode was produced by Meryl Horne, with help from
585
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:30.110
Courtney Gilbert, me, Wendy Zuckerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and
586
00:36:30.130 --> 00:36:34.789
Akedi Foster-Keys. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly.
587
00:36:35.230 --> 00:36:38.389
Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by
588
00:36:38.469 --> 00:36:42.840
So Wiley, Bumi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Peter Leonard. Thanks
589
00:36:42.860 --> 00:36:44.659
to all the researchers we got in touch with for
590
00:36:44.679 --> 00:36:48.739
this episode, including Dr. Damien Dennis, Dr. Phil Gander, and
591
00:36:48.780 --> 00:36:53.250
Matt Frank. A special thanks to Nolazi Nene, the Zuckerman family,
592
00:36:53.449 --> 00:36:58.989
and Joseph LaBelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. All right, I'm
593
00:36:59.010 --> 00:37:01.199
going to stop doing that. Back to you next time.
1
00:00:01.070 --> 00:00:04.790
Okay, okay. How about this? Hey, hey, how's it going?
2
00:00:05.030 --> 00:00:06.790
Get a little closer to the microphone.
3
00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:10.839
Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus
4
00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:11.759
from Gimlet.
5
00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:14.080
Do, do, do, do, do.
6
00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:20.219
This is the show that pits facts against feeling tingly.
7
00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:24.179
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
8
00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:25.640
Is that right?
9
00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:26.719
Am I doing it right?
10
00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:29.059
Yes, absolutely. Yes.
11
00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:34.270
Hey, it's so fun. On today's show, ASMR. If you
12
00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:37.350
don't know what it is, it's this massive trend where
13
00:00:37.369 --> 00:00:41.929
you watch videos of people whispering or making soft sounds.
14
00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:47.090
And you're supposed to get this lovely bodily reaction. And
15
00:00:47.109 --> 00:00:50.350
the person coaching me here is Mike Bryant. He's a
16
00:00:50.369 --> 00:00:55.179
vocal instructor who makes ASMR videos and goes by Velvet Whisperer.
17
00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:56.899
His friend suggested the name.
18
00:00:57.659 --> 00:01:00.359
I had no idea what I should use. And so
19
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:02.820
he's like, well, based off the tone of your voice,
20
00:01:02.899 --> 00:01:04.629
it kind of has a velvet quality to it.
21
00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:07.069
What did you think when your friend was like, you
22
00:01:07.109 --> 00:01:09.430
have a velvety tone to your voice?
23
00:01:09.489 --> 00:01:11.849
You know, I take that as a compliment.
24
00:01:13.870 --> 00:01:17.269
The first time that Mike heard about this weird ASMR
25
00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:21.510
world was back in 2015. At the time, Mike was
26
00:01:21.629 --> 00:01:24.049
really stressed out about work and having a lot of
27
00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:27.659
trouble getting to sleep. So one day, a friend texted
28
00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.040
him a link to a video that he thought would help.
29
00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:33.329
You know, when he said, watch this video tonight, I
30
00:01:33.409 --> 00:01:36.689
automatically just assumed, okay, maybe it's something like nature sounds
31
00:01:36.750 --> 00:01:40.129
or ocean sounds. You know, something that people typically do
32
00:01:40.189 --> 00:01:44.530
to relax. When I pulled up the video and a
33
00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:47.310
woman popped up on the screen and she was whispering.
34
00:01:47.329 --> 00:01:49.569
Good evening.
35
00:01:50.769 --> 00:01:53.790
This video is going to be.
36
00:01:54.510 --> 00:02:00.379
Dedicated At first I was like, what is this? This
37
00:02:00.459 --> 00:02:04.819
is not what I was expecting. But ironically, even in
38
00:02:04.859 --> 00:02:07.180
the moment of me kind of questioning, like, what is this?
39
00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.840
In like the first 10 minutes or so, I started
40
00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:15.629
to feel so relaxed. But then I had this other
41
00:02:15.710 --> 00:02:20.069
element of this tingles. The closest thing I can think
42
00:02:20.090 --> 00:02:22.969
of is like goosebumps, but it's not goosebumps though. It's
43
00:02:23.009 --> 00:02:24.150
something different.
44
00:02:25.830 --> 00:02:27.189
Like a high almost.
45
00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:31.110
Like literally feels like it's at the top of my
46
00:02:31.169 --> 00:02:35.770
head and then it just starts to kind of immerse
47
00:02:35.810 --> 00:02:39.000
throughout my body. Almost like raindrops that are just like
48
00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:47.860
coming down. It felt new, but it also kind of
49
00:02:47.900 --> 00:02:50.699
felt familiar. I feel really content right now. And if
50
00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:53.780
I was stressed before, not in this moment. But the
51
00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:55.819
video was like an hour long and I didn't make
52
00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:57.830
it all the way through. I fell asleep. It was
53
00:02:57.930 --> 00:03:02.710
the best sleep I had in so long. And I
54
00:03:02.750 --> 00:03:05.349
woke up with my headphones kind of like twisted or whatever,
55
00:03:05.409 --> 00:03:08.819
like much later. So then I was hooked. Like I
56
00:03:08.819 --> 00:03:10.240
was watching ASMR every night.
57
00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:19.659
It kind of blew his mind. And this tingles thing
58
00:03:19.699 --> 00:03:21.979
was so amazing that he just had to get more
59
00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.120
of it. And when he looked through the comments of
60
00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:27.710
that video... he realized that lots of people were feeling
61
00:03:27.729 --> 00:03:33.849
this way. Writing stuff like, ooh, wow, so many ASMR tingles. Amazing.
62
00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:37.469
And here's another one. I can't express how much you
63
00:03:37.490 --> 00:03:42.180
help me relax. Infinite tingles. Some people go even further,
64
00:03:42.780 --> 00:03:45.439
saying that these videos help them when they're feeling sad
65
00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:49.819
or anxious. A few months later, Mike decided to start
66
00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:54.370
making these ASMR videos himself. He'd found this thing with
67
00:03:54.389 --> 00:03:57.270
this magical effect and he wanted to pay it forward.
68
00:03:58.110 --> 00:04:00.750
He likes doing role play in his videos, like he'll
69
00:04:00.789 --> 00:04:03.389
pretend to be a dermatologist and will sit down in
70
00:04:03.430 --> 00:04:05.250
front of the camera and talk to you.
71
00:04:05.990 --> 00:04:07.960
So glad that you could make it here today.
72
00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:09.979
How was your commute over?
73
00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:11.259
Was it all right?
74
00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:16.319
And so Mike became part of this big trend. Fast
75
00:04:16.339 --> 00:04:21.800
forward to today and ASMR is huge. YouTube told us
76
00:04:21.839 --> 00:04:27.720
that last year ASMR-related videos were viewed more than 65
77
00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:31.730
billion times. It's one of the most searched terms on YouTube.
78
00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:35.829
Which is now crawling with ASMR artists.
79
00:04:36.589 --> 00:04:37.189
Whispering.
80
00:04:39.329 --> 00:04:46.350
Squishing slime. And tapping microphones with long fingernails. It's now
81
00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:50.199
so mainstream that companies are using it. Like here's an
82
00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:51.319
ad from KFC.
83
00:04:51.339 --> 00:05:01.689
Enjoy the gentle sound of deep frying chicken. Pretty relaxing, huh?
84
00:05:04.310 --> 00:05:07.839
Even the Texas Department of Health made a pandemic PSA
85
00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:21.310
using ASMR. And behind all of this hype is a
86
00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:27.800
very puzzling scientific question. How can listening to a rando
87
00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:32.610
on YouTube whispering give someone like Mike all of these
88
00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:37.850
emotional and physical feelings, like goosebumps and tingling on his head?
89
00:05:38.529 --> 00:05:41.089
What exactly is happening? Like if I pull a piece
90
00:05:41.129 --> 00:05:43.649
of hair off, the piece of hair has been detached
91
00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:48.410
from my skin and I felt a prickle. That seems
92
00:05:48.449 --> 00:05:50.930
to be so logical to me. But just to be
93
00:05:50.990 --> 00:05:53.300
hearing an ASMR video and that's saying I know raindrop
94
00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:56.680
sensations and now I'm content and I don't know. Like,
95
00:05:57.279 --> 00:05:58.759
what is happening?
96
00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:02.079
And then on the flip side, there's people who can't
97
00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:08.550
stand this stuff. Having someone go, this podcast is dedicated
98
00:06:08.569 --> 00:06:16.480
to you. Is less gentle raindrops and more acid rain.
99
00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:21.079
So what's going on there? Today on the show, we
100
00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:24.230
have some of the very first studies into this weird
101
00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:27.870
phenomenon and some clues as to what is actually happening
102
00:06:27.990 --> 00:06:30.910
in your body and your brain as you get these tingles.
103
00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:34.129
And by the way, you should stick around even if
104
00:06:34.170 --> 00:06:35.089
you've never felt this.
105
00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:43.709
Because we're going to give you lots of opportunities to try.
106
00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:52.959
When it comes to ASMR, there's a lot of what
107
00:06:53.420 --> 00:07:00.649
is happening. But then there's science. Science versus ASMR is
108
00:07:00.689 --> 00:07:16.170
coming up just after the break. Welcome back. Today, we're
109
00:07:16.209 --> 00:07:20.079
diving into this thing called ASMR. And the first thing
110
00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:22.779
you need to know about this phenomenon is that the
111
00:07:22.819 --> 00:07:26.439
name ASMR is meaningless.
112
00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:30.480
So it stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
113
00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.689
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
114
00:07:34.189 --> 00:07:37.009
That's Julia Puerro at the University of Essex in the
115
00:07:37.110 --> 00:07:41.149
UK chatting to our producer, Meryl Horne. And Julia says
116
00:07:41.370 --> 00:07:46.990
that even though this term, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, sounds fancy...
117
00:07:47.459 --> 00:07:49.879
It was actually just made up by someone who was
118
00:07:49.939 --> 00:07:52.439
one of the first people to talk about this tingly
119
00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:53.560
feeling online.
120
00:07:53.990 --> 00:07:56.449
And I think her intention was to make it sound
121
00:07:56.490 --> 00:08:00.649
more scientific because people were calling it brain tingles or
122
00:08:00.709 --> 00:08:04.620
braingasms and things like that. So she wanted to kind
123
00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:07.319
of legitimize it, I think, by, you know, giving it
124
00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:11.430
a scientific sounding name. but it doesn't really have any
125
00:08:11.470 --> 00:08:12.629
basis in science.
126
00:08:13.329 --> 00:08:14.519
Because it doesn't make any sense.
127
00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:15.860
Because it doesn't make any sense.
128
00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:20.420
Like, take meridian. In science, it means a lot of things.
129
00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:24.379
The prime meridian is a longitudinal line that connects the
130
00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:28.060
North and South Poles. It's also a thing in Chinese medicine.
131
00:08:28.899 --> 00:08:32.470
But the person who picked that word just wanted a
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00:08:32.529 --> 00:08:37.970
word that was less sexual than braingasm. And meridian also means...
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00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:44.679
prosperity and splendour. But just because the name ASMR is
134
00:08:44.740 --> 00:08:48.120
a bit silly, it doesn't mean that the feeling is.
135
00:08:49.080 --> 00:08:52.519
In fact, Julia, who studies this phenomenon, has felt it
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00:08:52.860 --> 00:08:53.860
ever since she was a kid.
137
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Somebody once described it, and I thought this was a
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00:08:56.330 --> 00:08:59.429
really good description, as somebody opening like a can of
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Coke and like pouring it on your scalp, that kind
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of fizzy, tingling stuff.
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And when Julia was growing up, there was no hype
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around ASMR. No YouTube at all, in fact. And she
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actually had no idea what she was feeling. But every
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now and then, out in the wild, she'd get those tingles.
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A really distinct memory for me was when I was about,
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I don't know, about 17 or 18 or something like that.
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But I basically, I signed up for a credit card
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by accident in a bank because... Because the person there
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was so relaxing. She was very soft-spoken, so I ended
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up just wanting to continue the conversation because I was
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so relaxed by her. So I basically signed up for
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this credit card, which I didn't.
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Need or want.
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It was like you were in a trance?
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Yeah, pretty much.
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Julia didn't know that this happened to anyone else, and
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she didn't really talk about it either. That was until
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something happened, something that would make Julia want to study this.
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So one day she was at a conference and that feeling,
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it happened again. One of the speakers had this particular
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soft-spoken voice and it gave Julia the tingles. But this
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time she mentioned it to a colleague who said, oh yeah,
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I just heard a story about this on the radio,
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about people watching videos of someone folding towels and then
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having these lovely reactions.
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And I think I had that kind of light bulb
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moment of that, that is the thing. And so that
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night I went home, I traveled home. And I was
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searching for it.
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So I was just.
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Typing like tingling and stuff like that into Google and
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news articles. And then I found the term ASMR. And
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then what I did was I typed it into YouTube.
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And then I spent about three or four hours watching
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ASMR videos on YouTube. And I was like, this is
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the best thing ever. And then after that, I thought, oh, gosh, well,
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if it's got a name, then presumably people are researching this.
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Julia was thinking that someone had to be studying this.
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So she goes searching the literature and finds basically nothing.
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I thought that there would be research on it and
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there wasn't. So that's why I kind of did something
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because I felt like something needed to be done.
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So Julia did something. She decided to set up one
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of the first experiments out there into ASMR. And she
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wanted to look at what was happening in the body
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of someone who was experiencing these tingles. So she brought
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a bunch of people into the lab, both those who
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experience ASMR, and from here on in, we're going to
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call them the tinglers, and those who don't experience it.
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So everybody was in a cubicle that had no windows,
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and it just had a computer screen, the physiology equipment,
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and things like that.
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And she showed them all some regular videos and some
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tingly videos. like this one of a woman folding towels.
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Today I'm going to show you different techniques of how
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to fold washcloths, hand towels.
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Julia put some sensors on them to measure things like
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their heart rate. And then it was game time, which
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meant leaving the person alone to watch the videos.
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It's mainly if you want the boring details waiting around.
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And it's very slow. So it took us a really
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long time to test all these people.
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Julia ran over 100 people through this ASMR assembly line.
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And here's what she saw. First off, when the tinglers
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watched their videos, their heart rates went down. And that
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was compared to the non-tinglers.
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So we found an average decrease of 3.41 beats per minute.
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About three beats per minute. That's the same response that
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we see from stuff like listening to relaxing music. Julia
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also put little sensors on people's fingertips, which measured something
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called skin conductance, which is a way that scientists can
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tell how excited you're getting. And it does this by
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measuring sweat.
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It's very subtle, so it can pick up kind of
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very small changes. So you don't need to be sort
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of dripping with sweat. In fact, that would probably be
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not very good because the senses might fall off in
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that case. But it is an indicator that something physiologically,
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emotionally is going on.
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Now, Julia thought that because ASMR is this uber relaxing sensation,
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that their skin measurements would show that people were getting
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less excited. But that's not what happened. people actually got
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a little bit sweatier, which is odd because remember, she
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also found that their heart rates went down. And usually
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you don't think about those two things going together, like
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increased sweating and decreased heart rate. If you go for
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a run or you have to give a presentation at work,
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in those cases, generally they're both going up. Your heart
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rate ramps up and you sweat more. But in Julia's study,
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With ASMR, that'll seem jumbled.
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What we think might be happening is that tingling sensation
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itself is a bit activating, but overall ASMR is very relaxing.
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Now, this is just one study and Julia is testing
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this more. But if she's right, ASMR isn't just about
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feeling purely relaxed or euphoric. It's this complicated dance between
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different emotions that's changing over time. In 2018, Julia published
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the first study looking at what's happening in the bodies
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of tinglers. And in it, she wrote that for the
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first time, they'd found physiological evidence for the ASMR experience.
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Soon after, another paper came out showing that tinglers' pupils
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dilate while they're getting this ASMR response. And that also
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seems to happen when you get the chills from listening
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to really great music. Okay, so as a recap, here's
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Julia's study as we interpreted it through ASMR. You know,
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with the heartbeat and the sweating and the tingles.
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Today I'm going to show you different techniques of how
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to fold washcloths, hand towels, and speak about towels too.
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I'm also going to show you the two ways of
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how to incorporate all three of them into and make
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them look into sense.
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And while Julia was measuring sweat and heartbeats... Other pioneering
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ASMR researchers were focusing on a different organ altogether, the brain.
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And now we have our first ever picture of what
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is happening inside our head as we get the tingles.
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And it's... Oh, pure magic. Just pure magic.
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That is coming up just after the break. Hey, it's
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Wendy from Science Versus, and I want to tell you
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about a podcast that I love, Science Friday. They cover
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all sorts of amazing things in the weird and wonderful
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world of science, from how concussions affect our brain to
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the inner secrets of a snake with a spider on
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its tail. Welcome back. We just learned that when people
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experience ASMR, it looks like there's this anomalous mix of
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relaxation and excitement going through their body. But what is
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happening inside their brains? This is something that Bryson Lochte,
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who's now a psychiatry resident at UCLA, was jonesing to
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find out. Several years ago, back when he was still
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a student, He wanted to chuck some tinglers into an
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MRI machine while they were all tingly to see what
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the devil was going on in there. And at first,
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he was worried that people wouldn't be able to get
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the tingles while they were in an MRI. He chatted
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about it with Meryl.
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You're in this tube, kind of like a big plastic
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tube with a really powerful magnet surrounding you. It's like
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a really noisy machine. It's kind of like the sound
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of being in a big dumpster and someone's like hitting
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it with like a chain or something, you know.
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Like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
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Yeah, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
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Yeah, it sounds like that.
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Bryson just had to hope that this ASMR feeling was
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stronger than all that banging going on. So he and
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his colleagues slid their first tingler into the tube and
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there was a screen where a video played. A video
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that was actually quite similar to the one in Julia's study. Literally, again,
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someone was folding a towel.
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Hi guys, I'm going to be folding some towels.
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What is it with these people and folding towels? They
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watched other videos too, where ASM artists stare straight into
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the camera and sometimes it feels like they almost reach
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out to the listeners. And so the tinglers were listening
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to all these whispers through headphones and And meanwhile, they
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held a little device with some buttons on it. There
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was one to press if they just felt relaxed and
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a different button to press if they felt the tingles.
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So the idea was that they would play the video
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and then the person in the machine would let the
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researchers know with the click of a button. Hey, I'm
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feeling relaxed. Or, ooh, I'm getting the tingles. Bryson would
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watch on a monitor as all of this happened. And
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he could see that people were pushing the tingles button.
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Despite this weird setting, the tingles were coming through.
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It was a big relief, to be honest.
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It worked.
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Yeah.
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I was very excited by it.
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This is Craig Richard, a professor of physiology over at
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Shenandoah University. And he ultimately teamed up with Bryson. and
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remembered seeing all these brain scans capturing the elusive tingles.
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Seeing the data was just so exciting because it helped
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explain the potential mechanism behind ASMR. So yeah, I was
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super giddy.
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What did you think was going on in the brain,
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you know, when people had tingles?
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Oh, pure magic. Just pure magic.
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But through these brain scans... He could see that what
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was happening wasn't just magic. Because even though this was
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a small study, just 10 tinglers, he could see that
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there were these very particular areas of the brain lighting
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up when people got that special sensation. And it helped
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explain what was going on here. Like the nucleus accumbens,
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which is a little nugget in the centre of your brain.
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And it's kind of like the happiness detector.
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Yeah.
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It gets activated when.
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You're riding your bike and you're enjoying it. You're eating
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your favorite food. Someone gives you $ 5. These are all
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lovely little moments. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's likely
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that your nucleus accumbens is going to light up during
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moments just like those.
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Another thing that caught Craig's eye was how ASMR seemed
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to activate a big slice of brain that's shaped like
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a rainbow. It's called the somatosensory cortex. And generally speaking,
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it lights up when someone touches you. Like, if someone
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strokes your cheek, there's a little chunk of your somatosensory
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cortex that's dedicated to cheek touching. And when watching these videos,
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that part of the brain lit up, as well as
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some other areas, like the forehead part of your somatosensory cortex.
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And this was actually a bit weird, because no one
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was touching the tinglers' cheeks or their foreheads. or any
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part of them at all. They're just watching a video.
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But to Craig, it made sense. Because in a lot
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of the videos.
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The artists in the videos were pretending to touch the viewer.
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It's simply that if hands are coming at you, whether
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it's on a video screen or it's in real life,
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your brain responds as if you're getting touched. People perceived
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fake touch as somewhat slightly as real touch. So the
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brain is somewhat easy to trick.
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For those of us who don't experience this ASMR thing,
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Craig says, think about it like when you watch a
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scary movie.
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You might jump out of your seat. There's no threat
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to you when you're watching a horror movie, but you
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feel scared and you might cover your eyes and you
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might jump out of your seat.
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Another study came out last year using EEGs to look
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at people experiencing ASMR, and it also showed activation in
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that same area of the brain. So Craig says, feeling
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like we're being touched, that might be part of the
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tingly feeling. But there was another clue in the data
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to help explain what was going on. These ASMRtists... They're
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looking at you gently.
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They're moving slowly. They're speaking in a caring way and
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they're looking at you in a caring way. And that
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all triggers your brain to respond like, oh, this is
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a caring person. I think I'll be relaxed. And you
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might even feel so relaxed that you fall asleep.
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Zooming out a little, Craig thinks that this ASMR feeling
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is tapping into a super important brain response that has
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nothing to do with towels and tapping. It kicks in
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when you're around someone you love and someone who cares
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for you. Researchers call it affiliative behavior, and it's associated
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with certain brain areas lighting up. Like these particular parts
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of the brain seem to go berserk when you put
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parents in a brain scanner and show them pictures of
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their little squirts. And yeah, Craig saw those areas of
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the brain lighting up as people were getting the tingles.
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Two surveys of tinglets have found that personal attention is
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00:24:24.119 --> 00:24:28.470
one of the most common triggers to getting tingles. And
382
00:24:28.509 --> 00:24:31.670
Craig says that doesn't always mean that someone is staring
383
00:24:31.710 --> 00:24:36.000
at the camera and folding towels for you.
384
00:24:36.700 --> 00:24:39.619
So there are... a lot of ASMR videos that you
385
00:24:39.700 --> 00:24:43.220
don't see the person's face. All you're seeing them do
386
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:46.299
is they might be, you just see their hands doing something.
387
00:24:46.740 --> 00:24:49.279
They might be solving a Rubik's cube. They might be
388
00:24:49.380 --> 00:24:53.819
raking a little Zen garden very carefully. And so that
389
00:24:53.859 --> 00:24:57.859
doesn't appear like it's this positive personal interaction, except for
390
00:24:57.980 --> 00:25:01.839
your brain knows those hands are attached to a person.
391
00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:05.619
And whoever this person is, is taking time out from
392
00:25:05.660 --> 00:25:09.769
their day to show you something that is important to them.
393
00:25:10.450 --> 00:25:13.670
So it makes sense for our brains to feel like, wow,
394
00:25:13.730 --> 00:25:15.029
this person really cares for me.
395
00:25:16.109 --> 00:25:21.930
Or they're just making money off you. But no matter,
396
00:25:22.259 --> 00:25:25.079
that's probably not what you're thinking about in the moment
397
00:25:25.119 --> 00:25:29.579
while you're watching these videos. Craig Records, there's just something
398
00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:35.660
about watching someone very carefully make fun sounds just for you.
399
00:25:36.470 --> 00:25:42.109
that hijacks this affiliative brain network. But it's not like
400
00:25:42.130 --> 00:25:46.109
this explains everything here. Because I don't know about you,
401
00:25:46.509 --> 00:25:49.549
but I don't feel all tingly in real life when
402
00:25:49.589 --> 00:25:54.410
someone's taking care of me. Like it's nice, but these tingles?
403
00:25:56.230 --> 00:26:01.089
Still though. This story rang true for Mike, our velvet whisperer,
404
00:26:01.109 --> 00:26:02.789
who you heard from at the start of the show.
405
00:26:03.549 --> 00:26:07.089
Mike had that big question about tingles, wondering what's happening
406
00:26:07.130 --> 00:26:10.029
there and why do we get them? And so we
407
00:26:10.089 --> 00:26:12.210
told him about this idea that it could be our
408
00:26:12.299 --> 00:26:15.339
brains getting a bit tricked and we see these videos
409
00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:18.160
and feel like someone is touching us and taking care
410
00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:22.099
of us. And as we told him all this, he
411
00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:24.000
had a bit of a Ratatouille moment.
412
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:26.200
That did just kind of unlock a memory.
413
00:26:26.220 --> 00:26:27.259
I remember.
414
00:26:27.730 --> 00:26:29.569
when I was like eight or nine, it was during
415
00:26:29.589 --> 00:26:31.859
the summertime when I wasn't in school. So my mom
416
00:26:32.059 --> 00:26:34.839
would have my grandmother watch me while she went off
417
00:26:34.859 --> 00:26:38.779
to work. And so when she would drive up, park
418
00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:42.500
the car, and I was asleep, she would wrap me
419
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:43.140
in a blanket.
420
00:26:43.880 --> 00:26:44.650
Was I eight years old?
421
00:26:44.670 --> 00:26:46.230
Maybe I was younger. I'm not sure. But anyway, she
422
00:26:46.250 --> 00:26:48.630
would wrap me in a blanket, pick me up, and
423
00:26:48.710 --> 00:26:52.609
carry me into my grandmother's house. And I remember feeling
424
00:26:52.750 --> 00:26:56.460
so I don't like comforted. There was something about this
425
00:26:56.740 --> 00:27:02.079
euphoric or like pleasant sensation of her doing that. And
426
00:27:02.140 --> 00:27:04.480
so once I caught on to it, I would fake
427
00:27:04.519 --> 00:27:06.759
sleep every time to make sure that she did it
428
00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:10.519
when she was carrying me. hearing her feet like hit
429
00:27:10.619 --> 00:27:13.480
the cement, you know, because those are like sounds that
430
00:27:13.519 --> 00:27:14.160
are around me.
431
00:27:14.180 --> 00:27:14.720
The tapping.
432
00:27:14.980 --> 00:27:15.599
Right, exactly.
433
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:16.640
The tapping, exactly.
434
00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:16.980
Yeah.
435
00:27:17.579 --> 00:27:17.960
Wow.
436
00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:20.700
So that was like your first ASMR experience, maybe.
437
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:21.900
Yeah, that has to be it.
438
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:23.369
So, okay, wow.
439
00:27:23.380 --> 00:27:23.920
Okay, yeah.
440
00:27:24.609 --> 00:27:26.349
So mystery solved for me in a sense.
441
00:27:26.390 --> 00:27:27.009
Yeah, I love that.
442
00:27:27.109 --> 00:27:27.630
I love that.
443
00:27:27.650 --> 00:27:36.970
So here's where we're at. That tingly sensation, it is real.
444
00:27:37.410 --> 00:27:42.309
Scientists can see it in brain and body scans. But Scooby,
445
00:27:43.289 --> 00:27:47.279
there's one final mystery we need to solve. I asked
446
00:27:47.299 --> 00:27:51.740
Craig about it. Do you think that everyone can experience it?
447
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:56.059
It does not appear. Well, I could be more confident
448
00:27:56.099 --> 00:27:56.400
than that.
449
00:27:56.960 --> 00:27:57.119
No.
450
00:27:58.619 --> 00:27:59.259
Right.
451
00:27:59.519 --> 00:27:59.940
There you go.
452
00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:04.589
Nailed that question. No, I don't think everyone can experience
453
00:28:04.630 --> 00:28:08.240
it because we do hear so frequently that of people
454
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:12.079
that will watch ASMR videos, they've tried a bunch, and
455
00:28:12.099 --> 00:28:15.599
they don't experience it. And they really want to.
456
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:19.690
Surveys have tried to get at how many people feel this.
457
00:28:20.069 --> 00:28:23.549
The largest we could find wasn't an academic study, but
458
00:28:23.569 --> 00:28:27.529
it was done by a French online streaming service. 12,000
459
00:28:27.529 --> 00:28:32.769
people responded from six countries. And about a quarter said
460
00:28:32.910 --> 00:28:37.369
that they felt something like goosebumps or tingles. Another quarter
461
00:28:37.730 --> 00:28:42.559
felt calm and relaxed. Another quarter felt nothing. And then
462
00:28:42.579 --> 00:28:46.460
there was something we haven't talked about yet. There were
463
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:51.940
those that hated it. Yeah, when listening to ASMR triggers,
464
00:28:52.420 --> 00:28:57.660
about one in five felt annoyed or irritated. Sorry if
465
00:28:57.700 --> 00:29:02.160
that's you. Also, I'm amazed you're still listening to this podcast.
466
00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:06.309
It's so curious. Like, Why do the same or, for
467
00:29:06.329 --> 00:29:10.829
the most part, many similar stimuli? And some people are like, oh,
468
00:29:11.049 --> 00:29:14.230
cool me to sleep with your sweet mouth sounds. And
469
00:29:14.390 --> 00:29:16.849
other people want to rip your face off if you
470
00:29:16.869 --> 00:29:18.069
make those sweet mouth sounds.
471
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.539
There's been a few studies that have tried to get
472
00:29:22.619 --> 00:29:27.059
at this question. Some look at personality differences between tinglers
473
00:29:27.180 --> 00:29:32.099
and non-tinglers. And they have found some differences. Like tinglers
474
00:29:32.299 --> 00:29:36.309
might be more open to experiences or more artistic on average.
475
00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:40.960
They also might be less likely to be conscientious. that
476
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:44.759
is not so concerned with deadlines or attention to detail
477
00:29:45.539 --> 00:29:49.019
so hermione is less likely to be a tingler than
478
00:29:49.099 --> 00:29:52.900
ron but even the nerds who do these studies say
479
00:29:53.420 --> 00:29:55.859
it's early days and not to read too much into
480
00:29:55.900 --> 00:30:01.220
this funnily enough the best explanation that we could find
481
00:30:01.859 --> 00:30:07.700
suggests that tinglers are just more generally sensitive to their environment. Like,
482
00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:11.730
they're more sensitive to bright lights or loud noises. So
483
00:30:11.789 --> 00:30:15.490
it's sort of a double-edged sword. In fact, research finds
484
00:30:15.650 --> 00:30:19.029
that tinglers are also more likely to experience the flip
485
00:30:19.049 --> 00:30:25.650
side of ASMR, called misophonia, hating sound. Like, perhaps they'll
486
00:30:25.750 --> 00:30:30.200
love hearing certain kinds of noises. like the gentle folding
487
00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:37.180
of a towel. But they'll hate other noises. And Craig,
488
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:39.660
who is a tingler, says that if you hit him
489
00:30:39.700 --> 00:30:43.460
with the wrong ASMR video, it'll drive him up the wall.
490
00:30:44.809 --> 00:30:49.769
It seems like there's a fine line between cringing and tingling.
491
00:30:50.849 --> 00:30:54.930
And we were curious where that line was. So we
492
00:30:54.970 --> 00:30:58.829
decided to try something that we know Some of you hate.
493
00:30:59.869 --> 00:31:13.279
Meryl brought out some crackers. All right, I'm going to start. Ew,
494
00:31:13.470 --> 00:31:14.480
I didn't like that one.
495
00:31:14.660 --> 00:31:16.519
Oh, yeah. Follow it up with a slurp and a gulp.
496
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:18.920
Exactly.
497
00:31:18.980 --> 00:31:21.599
And I agree with Wendy. The worst moment there for me,
498
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.140
it was the big lip smack at the end. That.
499
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:28.440
is where you turned me. You turned me right there.
500
00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:32.700
So there's ASMR style eating, which is what you started doing.
501
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:35.099
Yeah, right. I felt like I didn't feel the tingles,
502
00:31:35.160 --> 00:31:38.059
but I was like, oh, that's actually quite nice. Like crunch, crunch, crunch.
503
00:31:38.920 --> 00:31:43.259
Yeah. But once you start smacking and chewing loudly, that
504
00:31:43.299 --> 00:31:46.859
turns into mukbang style. So mukbang are those videos where
505
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:49.920
people have piles of food and they just sit there
506
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:51.619
and they eat the food from the video and they
507
00:31:51.660 --> 00:31:55.589
tend to chew with their mouth open making loud smacking noises.
508
00:31:56.329 --> 00:31:59.829
There are people who love that and may experience ASMR
509
00:32:00.130 --> 00:32:04.519
to those exaggerated mouth sounds. It's just like food. I
510
00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:07.220
may not like this apple pie, but oh, I like
511
00:32:07.299 --> 00:32:09.240
this apple pie made by someone else.
512
00:32:12.460 --> 00:32:16.740
So scientists are just starting to unfold what's happening with
513
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:21.019
this tingly feeling. And it looks like if you're watching
514
00:32:21.059 --> 00:32:25.349
these videos, It might get you excited by tingling the
515
00:32:25.390 --> 00:32:27.569
part of your brain that makes you feel like you're
516
00:32:27.589 --> 00:32:31.289
being cared for. Or it might make you want to
517
00:32:31.450 --> 00:32:34.769
throw your laptop out the window. And we're not exactly
518
00:32:34.869 --> 00:32:38.609
sure why that is. In fact, there's lots of questions
519
00:32:38.690 --> 00:32:43.109
that we still have about ASMR. Like, researchers are wondering
520
00:32:43.289 --> 00:32:46.490
if it could help some people who have anxiety or depression.
521
00:32:47.579 --> 00:32:48.759
We don't have much science there.
522
00:32:48.779 --> 00:32:48.859
Also.
523
00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:54.089
Lots of tinklers say that they start to get desensitized
524
00:32:54.150 --> 00:32:57.569
to this after a while. It gets harder and harder
525
00:32:57.650 --> 00:33:02.900
to feel the magic. Why is that? We don't know.
526
00:33:04.619 --> 00:33:07.859
But if you are just starting out on your ASMR adventure,
527
00:33:10.279 --> 00:33:12.440
how do you find out if you're a tinkler or not?
528
00:33:13.099 --> 00:33:17.599
Go to YouTube, put in ASMR, and treat it like
529
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:18.079
a buffet.
530
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.680
And this was me and Meryl. Before we started making
531
00:33:21.700 --> 00:33:25.480
this episode, we actually didn't know if we could experience ASMR.
532
00:33:26.180 --> 00:33:29.240
So we decided to hit the buffet. I gave it
533
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:33.009
a go, starting with the old classic. The first thing
534
00:33:33.170 --> 00:33:36.309
is relaxing towel folding tutorial.
535
00:33:36.809 --> 00:33:37.190
Hello.
536
00:33:38.529 --> 00:33:40.089
Welcome to another towel folding.
537
00:33:40.109 --> 00:33:42.049
Okay, no, this is too ridiculous. No, no, no, no, no.
538
00:33:42.269 --> 00:33:42.930
Okay, towel.
539
00:33:43.109 --> 00:33:43.450
I can't.
540
00:33:43.730 --> 00:33:44.690
Okay, next one.
541
00:33:44.730 --> 00:33:47.670
What I'll be doing in this video is a hand
542
00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:48.539
motion video.
543
00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:51.960
I don't like this one.
544
00:33:52.460 --> 00:33:53.380
Hello, my.
545
00:33:55.019 --> 00:33:55.880
Beautiful humans.
546
00:33:55.960 --> 00:33:59.700
No, no, no, no, no, no.
547
00:33:59.859 --> 00:34:00.849
No, no, no, no, no, no.
548
00:34:01.609 --> 00:34:03.569
But Meryl hit the jackpot.
549
00:34:04.369 --> 00:34:07.930
I think I just experienced ASMR for the first time.
550
00:34:07.950 --> 00:34:16.389
I'm looking at this video, and there's this woman who has.
551
00:34:17.409 --> 00:34:17.489
I.
552
00:34:17.489 --> 00:34:21.329
Think it's just cardboard. It's like she has long fingernails
553
00:34:21.409 --> 00:34:26.369
and she's tapping it on this little circle of cardboard.
554
00:34:27.329 --> 00:34:34.900
And it's like, I just got weirdly happy. Like, I'm smiling.
555
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:36.980
I do feel some tingles.
556
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:40.619
I feel really good.
557
00:34:40.639 --> 00:34:40.719
Okay.
558
00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:45.989
If that meant.
559
00:34:48.010 --> 00:34:52.070
There's someone tapping their nails on a phone or something
560
00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:58.159
and like sweeping their hands like. And I'm really sleepy now.
561
00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:05.170
I'm actually going to go to sleep.
562
00:35:17.889 --> 00:35:18.780
That's science versus.
563
00:35:24.349 --> 00:35:24.809
Hello.
564
00:35:25.230 --> 00:35:27.550
Hey, Meryl Horne, producer at Science Versus.
565
00:35:27.750 --> 00:35:28.309
Hi, Wendy.
566
00:35:28.590 --> 00:35:30.269
How many citations in this week's episode?
567
00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:31.730
There's 73 citations.
568
00:35:31.730 --> 00:35:32.409
73.
569
00:35:32.409 --> 00:35:35.650
Yep. And if people want to find these citations, where
570
00:35:35.670 --> 00:35:36.110
should they go?
571
00:35:36.130 --> 00:35:39.090
They can go to our show notes and then follow.
572
00:35:38.869 --> 00:35:40.150
The links to the transcript.
573
00:35:40.449 --> 00:35:42.800
And then you can also head to our Instagram where
574
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.980
you can see Wendy's debut as an ASMR artist and
575
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.300
an amazing little sand sculpture that our producer Michelle Dang made.
576
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:56.650
Yeah, yeah. It's fun and embarrassing. The sand sculpture is fun.
577
00:35:56.809 --> 00:36:00.969
The ASMR is embarrassing. Yes, and if you have any
578
00:36:01.010 --> 00:36:03.449
questions for me, you can shoot me a tweet at
579
00:36:03.809 --> 00:36:06.800
Wendy Zook. Z-U-K. Yeah. Yeah.
580
00:36:07.059 --> 00:36:13.500
Can you say bye-bye? Bye-bye.
581
00:36:13.539 --> 00:36:13.840
Bye-bye.
582
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:14.000
Bye.
583
00:36:14.019 --> 00:36:14.099
Bye.
584
00:36:23.739 --> 00:36:26.340
This episode was produced by Meryl Horne, with help from
585
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:30.110
Courtney Gilbert, me, Wendy Zuckerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and
586
00:36:30.130 --> 00:36:34.789
Akedi Foster-Keys. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly.
587
00:36:35.230 --> 00:36:38.389
Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by
588
00:36:38.469 --> 00:36:42.840
So Wiley, Bumi Hidaka, Bobby Lord, and Peter Leonard. Thanks
589
00:36:42.860 --> 00:36:44.659
to all the researchers we got in touch with for
590
00:36:44.679 --> 00:36:48.739
this episode, including Dr. Damien Dennis, Dr. Phil Gander, and
591
00:36:48.780 --> 00:36:53.250
Matt Frank. A special thanks to Nolazi Nene, the Zuckerman family,
592
00:36:53.449 --> 00:36:58.989
and Joseph LaBelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. All right, I'm
593
00:36:59.010 --> 00:37:01.199
going to stop doing that. Back to you next time.
