ASMR: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

This was my college art teaching stock-in-trade. I further amped up the "low-grade euphoria" by suggesting caffeinated drinks and shameless flattery.

"'Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)' is an experience characterized by a 'static-like or tingling sensation' on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. It has been compared with 'auditory-tactile synesthesia.'

ASMR signifies the subjective experience of 'low-grade euphoria' characterized by 'a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin.' It is most commonly triggered by 'specific auditory or visual stimuli,' and less commonly by intentional attention control.

The subjective experience, sensation, and perceptual phenomenon now widely identified by the term 'Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response' is described by some of those susceptible to it as 'akin to a mild electrical current -- or the carbonated bubbles in a glass of champagne'.

Triggers

ASMR is usually precipitated by stimuli referred to as 'triggers'. ASMR triggers, which are most commonly auditory and visual, may be encountered through the interpersonal interactions of daily life. Additionally, ASMR is often triggered by exposure to specific audio and video. Such media may be specially made with the specific purpose of triggering ASMR or originally created for other purposes and later discovered to be effective as a trigger of the experience.

Stimuli that can trigger ASMR, as reported by those who experience it, include the following:

Listening to a softly spoken or whispering voice.

Listening to quiet, repetitive sounds resulting from someone engaging in a mundane task such as turning the pages of a book.

Watching somebody attentively execute a mundane task such as preparing food.

Loudly chewing, crunching, slurping or biting foods, drinks, or gum.

Receiving altruistic tender personal attention.

Initiating the stimulus through conscious manipulation without the need for external video or audio triggers.

Listening to a person explain a concept, describe an object or system.

Watching and listening to an audiovisual recording of a person performing or simulating the above actions and producing their consequent and accompanying sounds is sufficient to trigger ASMR for the majority of those who report susceptibility to the experience."

A. R. Luria: "The Mind of a Mnemonist"

A. R. Luria

I'm now catching up on my garage sale book-buy reading of last summer -- namely, the classic study of a memory "super-savant." The descriptions of the way "S." combines his synesthesia sensations to build a "memory palace" for his images is fascinating. (A. R. Luria studied Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian journalist with a seemingly unlimited memory, sometimes referred to in contemporary literature as "flashbulb" memory, in part due to his five-fold synesthesia.)

"A welcome re-issue of an English translation of Alexander Luria's famous case-history of hypermnestic man. The study remains the classic paradigm of what Luria called 'romantic science, ' a genre characterized by individual portraiture based on an assessment of operative psychological processes. The opening section analyses in some detail the subject's extraordinary capacity for recall and demonstrates the association between the persistence of iconic memory and a highly developed synaesthesia. The remainder of the book deals with the subject's construction of the world, his mental strengths and weaknesses, his control of behavior and his personality. The result is a contribution to literature as well as to science.

Luria's essay is a model of lucid presentation and is an altogether convincing description of a man whose whole personality and fate was conditioned by an intellectual idiosyncrasy.

A distinguished Soviet psychologist's study...[of a] young man who was discovered to have a literally limitless memory and eventually became a professional mnemonist. Experiments and interviews over the years showed that his memory was based on synesthesia (turning sounds into vivid visual imagery), that he could forget anything only by an act of will, that he solved problems in a peculiar crablike fashion that worked, and that he was handicapped intellectually because he could not make discriminations, and because every abstraction and idea immediately dissolved into an image for him. It is all fascinating and delightful."

Daniel Tammet: Different Ways of Knowing

Daniel Tammet has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia -- meaning that his perception of words, numbers and colors are woven together into a new way of perceiving and understanding the world. The author of "Born on a Blue Day," Tammet shares his art and his passion for languages in this glimpse into his beautiful mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzd7ReqiQnE