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.

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1 Department of Psychology, The Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom
2 Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27303v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Psychiatry and Psychology
Keywords
ASMR, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, Placebo effect, Expectation effect, Commentary
Copyright
© 2018 Hostler et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Hostler TJ, Poerio GL, Blakey E. 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

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.

Author 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