ASMR: Why do some sounds trigger a pleasurable ‘tingly’ feeling in the brain?

What is [Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or] ASMR? As any article you read on the subject will tell you, the term was coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010 to describe the tingling sensation she, and others, feel in response to specific sensory cues. This feeling starts in the head and can spread to the shoulders and back, sometimes to other extremities when particularly intense.

No-one knows what percentage of the population experiences ASMR. In fact no-one knows very much about anything relating to ASMR. This isn’t that surprising given the first peer-reviewed paper on ASMR was only published in 2015, but since then the research has been all over the place.

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Ultimately, I think ASMR provides us an opportunity to explore the limits of skepticism, particularly around personal experience. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but given the complexity of the human brain, it really doesn’t seem that extraordinary that there should be some quirks that only a small percentage of the population experiences. Synaesthesia and now ASMR are two of these quirks.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here.