There are anatomical and functional connections between auditory and somatosensory processing. For instance, hearing a rubbing sound and feeling sandpaper with the fingers activates the same part of the cortical area in the caudal auditory region.

New Mexico Highlands University

A large part of our somatosensory system is responsible for our perception of touch.
- Sensory Organ: Skin
- Dorsal Column System
- Primary Sensory Cortex
- Secondary Sensory Cortex
- Skin sensory receptors

Somatosensory System: Touch

- speech segmentation
- audio and somatosensory processing

Focuses of hearing (auditory perception)

ASMR is a warm, enjoyable tingling feeling some get in parts of the body, such as the scalp, neck, and shoulders from watching online videos with certain audio, visual, and tactile stimuli. Intensity of responses to stimuli varies by individual and there’s significant variance in types of triggers individuals prefer.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)

Niven, E. C., & Scott, S. K. (2021). Careful whispers: When sounds feel like a touch. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(8), 645–647. https://doi-org.proxy.wichita.edu/10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.006

Careful whispers: When sounds feel like a touch

Skin is the largest organ in the human body. It is responsible for receiving the environmental stimuli that we process when perceiving touch and pain. The skin is made up of three separate layers.
- Epidermis
- Dermis
- Hypodermis

Sensory Organ: Skin

The dorsal column system is the pathway in which the touch receptors that have sent their axons to the spinal cord, have entered the spinal cord through the dorsal horn and turn upward, traveling to the brain along the spinal cord's dorsal column of white matter.
- Dorsal column nuclei
- Dermatome

Dorsal Column System

The primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is located in both hemispheres and lies in the postcentral gyrus of the parietal cortex, just behind the central sulcus dividing the parietal lobe from the frontal lobe. Each S1 receives touch information from the opposite side of the body. 
- Topographic Mapping
- Plasticity of the Sensory Cortex

Primary Sensory Cortex

The secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) maps both sides of the body in registered overlay (ie. the left-arm and right-arm representations occupy the same part of the map and so forth). In recent studies, the S2 has been implicated in information integration, grounded essentially in spatial body maps, allowing humans to form complex relations between the body and the environmental space (establishing a body-in-world map). 

Secondary Sensory Cortex

Sensory neurons located in the skin that respond to various mechanical stimulations. There are 3 main groups of receptors, categorized by what type of stimulus they detect:
- Mechanoreceptors
- Thermoreceptors
- Nociceptors


Skin Receptors

Auditory and Somatosensory Processing

Somatosensation, commonly known as the sense of touch, is the sensory system responsible for perceiving contact with the skin.

Touch (Somatosensation)

The pathway for sensory information begins at the skin's receptors and free nerve endings. From there, signals ascend the spinal cord and are relayed through the medulla and thalamus before reaching their final destination for processing in the somatosensory cortex, which is situated in the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe.

Somatosensory Information Pathway

Speech is transmitted through continuous sound waves. When someone is familiar with a language that someone is speaking in, they are able to break up the continuous waves into discrete words with individual meaning. They are in a sense segmenting the sound waves (from speech) into words.

Speech segmentation

People choose to watch them to reduce stress, and address insomnia, which are symptoms of anxiety.

Why People Watch ASMR Videos

ASMR videos significantly reduces state anxiety for those who experience ASMR, but has no effect on trait anxiety for those who don’t experience ASMR.

ASMR Effectiveness

Functional connectivity looks at interactions among different regions of the brain. Functional MRI (fMRI) can measure this. Each type of ASMR trigger relates to different functional connectivity patterns in the brain. 

ASMR and Functional Connectivity 

Dorsal attention network connects to the top-down adapting of attention to visual stimuli. Being affected by two types of ASMR triggers positively relates to the dorsal attention network, indicating ASMR may relate to irregular attention processing.

ASMR and Dorsal Attention Network

There’s convergence between ASMR, transliminality, body consciousness, and unusual experiences, and divergence between ASMR and mindfulness.

ASMR and Consciousness Correlates

This includes:
-	Watching 
-	Touching
-	Gentle repetitive sounds
-	Simulations
-	Soft oral sounds 

ASMR Triggers

Ways to measure ASMR include:

- Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response Scale [ASMR-15]

Measuring ASMR

ASMR is related to increased sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).  Those with SPS are more sensitive to subtle stimuli and easily overstimulated by external stimuli.

ASMR and Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)

ASMR first emerged as an internet phenomenon in 2010, and has been growing.

History of ASMR

ASMR and Mindfulness

Both operate under similar physiological mechanisms and both can be induced by mindfulness.

ASMR and Frisson

People who experience ASMR tend to have more sensitivity to pain but no difference in pain tolerance than the control group.

ASMR and Pain Tolerance

All participants, even those who don’t feel the effects of ASMR, experienced decreased heart rate (HR) when watching ASMR videos.

ASMR and Heart Rate 

Electrodermal Activity (EDA) refers to involuntary changes in the electrical features of the skin. For those who experience ASMR and are low in conscientiousness, EDA increased more than those who don’t experience ASMR.

ASMR and Electrodermal Activity 

Electroencephalography (EEG)’s measure electrical impulses in the brain. For ASMR experiencers and non-experiencers, watching ASMR decreased theta power, and increased beta power.

ASMR and Electroencephalography 

People who experience ASMR had significantly higher levels of openness-to- experience, and neuroticism, and significantly lower levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness.

Learn Before

Related