Still more than a feeling: Commentary on Cash et al., “Expectancy effects in the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” and recommendations for measurement in future ASMR research.
Author and article information
Abstract
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) – the sensory phenomenon experienced by some people in response to visual and auditory stimuli such as whispering – has attracted substantial public attention but is not yet well-understood or well-established within the scientific community. Recent research published in PeerJ by Cash, Heisick, & Papesh (2018) investigated whether ASMR could be a placebo effect (resulting from expectation) rather than a genuine experience triggered by ASMR-inducing stimuli. In this article, we provide a commentary on Cash et al.’s findings and argue that they provide evidence for (rather than against) the veracity of ASMR. We discuss issues regarding measurement of ASMR and end by providing some recommendations on how to assess ASMR as both a state and a trait, in the hope of galvanising collaborative research efforts in the emerging field of ASMR.
Cite this as
2018. Still more than a feeling: Commentary on Cash et al., “Expectancy effects in the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” and recommendations for measurement in future ASMR research. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27303v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27303v1Author comment
This article is a commentary on: Cash, D. K., Heisick, L. L., & Papesh, M. H. (2018) Expectancy effects in the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. PeerJ, 6:e5229, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5229
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Thomas J Hostler conceived and designed the experiments, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Giulia Lara Poerio conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Emma Blakey authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
No new data is presented in this paper. Code is provided for reproducing Figure 1 on the OSF: https://osf.io/axn3d/ This code uses raw data available online as supplementary material from the paper we are providing a commentary on: https://peerj.com/articles/5229/
Funding
The authors received no funding for this work.
