Sensory channel effects of autonomous sensory meridian response on short-term memory

Abstract

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is nowadays popular to the general public and it is often suggested that ASMR may help individuals feel relaxation and well-being. There are, however, few experimental studies about ASMR. This study aims to investigate the sensory channel effects of ASMR on short-term memory. ASMR and negative affect contents were prepared to compare their differences of short-term memory performance according to three types of sensory channels (‘visual’, ‘auditory’ and ‘visual + auditory’ channels). The short-term memory performance was measured by nonsense syllable memory tests. 45 participants who were randomly assigned to each of three sensory channel conditions took part in the experiments, which consisted of three sessions: training session, negative affect session and ASMR session. Through three sessions, each of participants perceived negative affect and ASMR contents using the assigned sensory channel and then conducted short-term memory tests, respectively. The differences of short-term memory test scores between negative affect and ASMR contents were analyzed using the paired t-tests, according to three types of sensory channels. The experimental results showed that the difference of short-term memory test scores between negative affect and ASMR contents is statistically significant only for ‘auditory’ channel. It means that the positive effects of ASMR contents on short-term memory are significant only through ‘auditory’ channel, so it would be recommended to use ASMR sounds for increasing short-term memory performance. © 2019, ICIC International. All rights reserved.