From touch to tingles: Assessing ASMR triggers and their consistency over time with the ASMR Trigger Checklist (ATC).

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a term describing a complex sensory-perceptual phenomena characterised by relaxing and pleasurable scalp tingling sensations. A central defining feature of ASMR is that the sensation is elicited by a core set of stimuli or so-called "triggers". The idea that ASMR is triggered by specific external stimuli is frequently invoked in conceptual definitions of ASMR and implicit in its operationalisation as a trait and state; however, it is rarely explicitly measured. In this paper, we present the 37-item ASMR Trigger Checklist (ATC), a new tool to assist researchers in ASMR-responder identification and to capture individual differences in the number and intensity of ASMR triggers across auditory (vocal, non-vocal), visual, and tactile/interpersonal stimulus domains. The ATC is related to existing measures of trait-ASMR that tap into the sensations and phenomenological aspects of the experience (ASMR-15 and AEQ) and provides a complementary assessment for researchers interested in common ASMR elicitors. Importantly, the ATC addresses concerns regarding the over-reliance of audio-visual ASMR stimuli in existing measures and conceptualisations of ASMR by emphasising tactile and interpersonal stimuli. Physical touch to the body was both the most endorsed (98%) and intense (average 5/6) ASMR trigger. 24 of the 37 ATC items were endorsed by 75% of the sample and might therefore be considered prototypical ASMR triggers. The ATC has appropriate convergent validity through its association with other individual differences known to be related to ASMR (e.g., absorption, openness to experience, aesthetic experiences). Re-administration of the ATC after 5 months showed high consistency in reports of ASMR triggers with 84% of endorsements remaining the same over time. We hope that the ATC will prove a useful tool for researchers in participant selection and recruitment as well as for measuring individual differences within the ASMR population.

From the Outside in: ASMR Is Characterised by Reduced Interoceptive Accuracy but Higher Sensation Seeking.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a complex sensory-perceptual phenomenon characterised by relaxing and pleasurable scalp-tingling sensations. The ASMR trait is nonuniversal, thought to have developmental origins, and a prevalence rate of 20%. Previous theory and research suggest that trait ASMR may be underlined by atypical multisensory perception from both interoceptive and exteroceptive modalities. In this study, we examined whether ASMR responders differed from nonresponders in interoceptive accuracy and multisensory processing style. Results showed that ASMR responders had lower interoceptive accuracy but a greater tendency towards sensation seeking, especially for tactile, olfactory, and gustatory modalities. Exploratory mediation analyses suggest that sensation-seeking behaviours in trait ASMR could reflect a compensatory mechanism for either deficits in interoceptive accuracy, a tendency to weight exteroceptive signals more strongly, or both. This study provides the foundations for understanding how interoceptive and exteroceptive mechanisms might explain not only the ASMR trait, but also individual differences in the ability to experience complex positive emotions more generally.

Patterns of ongoing thought in the real world.

Health and well-being are impacted by our thoughts and the things we do. In the laboratory, studies suggest specific task contexts impact thought processes. More broadly, this suggests the people we are with, the places we are in, and the activities we perform may influence our thought patterns. In our study, participants completed experience sampling surveys for five days in daily life. Principal component analysis decomposed this data to identify common "patterns of thought," and linear mixed modelling related these patterns to the participants' activities. Our study replicated the influence of socializing on patterns of thought and established that this is part of a broader set of relationships linking activities to how thoughts are organized in daily life. Our study suggests sampling thinking in the real world may help map thoughts to activities, and these "thought-activity" mappings could be useful to researchers and health care professionals interested in health and well-being.

Similar but different: High prevalence of synesthesia in autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR).

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a complex sensory-emotional experience characterized by pleasant tingling sensations initiating at the scalp. ASMR is triggered in some people (called ASMR-responders) by stimuli including whispering, personal attention, and crisp sounds (termed ASMR triggers). Since its inception, ASMR has been likened to synesthesia, but convincing empirical data directly linking ASMR with synesthesia is lacking. In this study, we examined whether the prevalence of synesthesia is indeed significantly higher in ASMR-responders than non-responders. A sample of working adults and students (N = 648) were surveyed about their experience with ASMR and common types of synesthesia. The proportion of synesthetes who were classified as ASMR-responders was 52%, whereas 22% of ASMR-responders were also synesthetes. These results suggest that: (1) over half of those identifying as synesthetes also experience ASMR, and (2) that synesthesia is up to four times as common among ASMR-responders as among non-responders (22% vs. 5%). Findings also suggest a prevalence rate for ASMR of approximately 20%. Overall, the co-occurrence of ASMR and synesthesia lends empirical support to the idea that ASMR may be driven by synesthetic mechanisms, but future research would benefit from examining how ASMR and synesthesia are different, as well as similar.

Touching you, touching me: Higher incidence of mirror-touch synaesthesia and positive (but not negative) reactions to social touch in Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.

The characterisation of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) as an audio-visual phenomenon overlooks how tactile experiences are not just perceptual concurrents of ASMR (i.e., tingling) but also commonly strong ASMR inducers. Here we systematically investigated whether ASMR-responders show altered tactile processing compared to controls. Using a screening measure of vicarious touch with a predefined cut-off for mirror-touch synaesthesia (MTS; a condition where tactile sensations are experienced when viewing, but not receiving, touch), we found that ASMR-responders had more frequent and intense vicarious touch experiences, as well as a strikingly higher incidence of MTS, than non-responders. ASMR-responders also reported greater reactivity to positive, but not negative, interpersonal touch. Correlations further showed these patterns to be more prevalent in those responders with stronger ASMR. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of heightened sensory sensitivity, bodily awareness, and the underlying neuro-cognitive mechanisms driving vicarious tactile perception in ASMR and MTS.

The impact of social isolation and changes in work patterns on ongoing thought during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns in countries across the world, changing the lives of billions of people. The United Kingdom's first national lockdown, for example, restricted people's ability to socialize and work. The current study examined how changes to socializing and working during this lockdown impacted ongoing thought patterns in daily life. We compared the prevalence of thought patterns between two independent real-world, experience-sampling cohorts, collected before and during lockdown. In both samples, young (18 to 35 y) and older (55+ y) participants completed experience-sampling measures five times daily for 7 d. Dimension reduction was applied to these data to identify common "patterns of thought." Linear mixed modeling compared the prevalence of each thought pattern 1) before and during lockdown, 2) in different age groups, and 3) across different social and activity contexts. During lockdown, when people were alone, social thinking was reduced, but on the rare occasions when social interactions were possible, we observed a greater increase in social thinking than prelockdown. Furthermore, lockdown was associated with a reduction in future-directed problem solving, but this thought pattern was reinstated when individuals engaged in work. Therefore, our study suggests that the lockdown led to significant changes in ongoing thought patterns in daily life and that these changes were associated with changes to our daily routine that occurred during lockdown.

Age-related changes in ongoing thought relate to external context and individual cognition.

Understanding how age-related changes in cognition manifest in the real world is an important goal. One means of capturing these changes involves "experience sampling" participant's self-reported thoughts. Research has shown age-related changes in ongoing thought: e.g., older adults have fewer thoughts unrelated to the here-and-now. However, it is currently unclear how these changes reflect cognitive aging or lifestyle changes. 78 younger adults and 35 older adults rated their thought contents along 20 dimensions and the difficulty of their current activity in their daily lives. They also performed cognitive tasks in the laboratory. In a set of exploratory analyses, we found that older adults spent more time thinking positive, wanted thoughts, particularly in demanding contexts, and less time mind wandering about their future selves. Past-related thought related to episodic memory differently in older and younger adults. These findings inform the use of experience sampling to understand cognitive aging.

The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought.

A core goal in cognitive neuroscience is identifying the physical substrates of the patterns of thought that occupy our daily lives. Contemporary views suggest that the landscape of ongoing experience is heterogeneous and can be influenced by features of both the person and the context. This perspective piece considers recent work that explicitly accounts for both the heterogeneity of the experience and context dependence of patterns of ongoing thought. These studies reveal that systems linked to attention and control are important for organizing experience in response to changing environmental demands. These studies also establish a role of the default mode network beyond task-negative or purely episodic content, for example, implicating it in the level of vivid detail in experience in both task contexts and in spontaneous self-generated experiential states. Together, this work demonstrates that the landscape of ongoing thought is reflected in the activity of multiple neural systems, and it is important to distinguish between processes contributing to how the experience unfolds from those linked to how these experiences are regulated.

The psychological correlates of distinct neural states occurring during wakeful rest.

When unoccupied by an explicit external task, humans engage in a wide range of different types of self-generated thinking. These are often unrelated to the immediate environment and have unique psychological features. Although contemporary perspectives on ongoing thought recognise the heterogeneity of these self-generated states, we lack both a clear understanding of how to classify the specific states, and how they can be mapped empirically. In the current study, we capitalise on advances in machine learning that allow continuous neural data to be divided into a set of distinct temporally re-occurring patterns, or states. We applied this technique to a large set of resting state data in which we also acquired retrospective descriptions of the participants' experiences during the scan. We found that two of the identified states were predictive of patterns of thinking at rest. One state highlighted a pattern of neural activity commonly seen during demanding tasks, and the time individuals spent in this state was associated with descriptions of experience focused on problem solving in the future. A second state was associated with patterns of activity that are commonly seen under less demanding conditions, and the time spent in it was linked to reports of intrusive thoughts about the past. Finally, we found that these two neural states tended to fall at either end of a neural hierarchy that is thought to reflect the brain's response to cognitive demands. Together, these results demonstrate that approaches which take advantage of time-varying changes in neural function can play an important role in understanding the repertoire of self-generated states. Moreover, they establish that important features of self-generated ongoing experience are related to variation along a similar vein to those seen when the brain responds to cognitive task demands.

Associations between exploding head syndrome and measures of sleep quality and experiences, dissociation, and well-being.

Exploding head syndrome is a sensory parasomnia characterized by the perception of loud noises and/or a sense of explosion in the head that occurs when transitioning to or from sleep. Despite receiving little attention from both researchers and clinicians, studies suggest that approximately 10%-15% of individuals have episodes, with significant levels of fear occurring in a subset of cases. Using two independent samples, we examine sleep and well-being variables associated with exploding head syndrome. We focused on insomnia symptoms, life stress, anxiety and depression symptoms, and sleep experiences such as sleep paralysis as potential factors associated with exploding head syndrome. Study 1 consisted of 199 female undergraduate students. We found a lifetime prevalence of 37.19%, with 6.54% experiencing at least one episode a month. All variables were associated with exploding head syndrome in univariate analyses, but only insomnia symptoms and sleep paralysis frequency were significantly associated with exploding head syndrome in multiple logistic regression models. Study 2 was an international sample of 1683 participants (age range 18-82, 53.00% female). Lifetime prevalence was 29.59%, with monthly episodes occurring in 3.89% of participants. The same set of variables was investigated as in Study 1, with dissociative experiences during wakefulness and a larger range of sleep experiences also included. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1. In addition, dissociative experiences during wakefulness and other sleep experiences such as nightmares were associated with exploding head syndrome in multiple logistic regression models. These studies provide valuable first insights into variables associated with exploding head syndrome.Clinical trial information: Study 1 constitutes a planned exploratory outcome of a pilot feasibility study conducted to provide information useful for designing a clinical trial: Name: STOP-pilot. URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03062891?term=NCT03062891&rank=1, Registration: NCT03062891.

The role of the default mode network in component processes underlying the wandering mind.

Experiences such as mind-wandering illustrate that cognition is not always tethered to events in the here-and-now. Although converging evidence emphasises the default mode network (DMN) in mind-wandering, its precise contribution remains unclear. The DMN comprises cortical regions that are maximally distant from primary sensory and motor cortex, a topological location that may support the stimulus-independence of mind-wandering. The DMN is functionally heterogeneous, comprising regions engaged by memory, social cognition and planning; processes relevant to mind-wandering content. Our study examined the relationships between: (i) individual differences in resting-state DMN connectivity, (ii) performance on memory, social and planning tasks and (iii) variability in spontaneous thought, to investigate whether the DMN is critical to mind-wandering because it supports stimulus-independent cognition, memory retrieval, or both. Individual variation in task performance modulated the functional organization of the DMN: poor external engagement was linked to stronger coupling between medial and dorsal subsystems, while decoupling of the core from the cerebellum predicted reports of detailed memory retrieval. Both patterns predicted off-task future thoughts. Consistent with predictions from component process accounts of mind-wandering, our study suggests a 2-fold involvement of the DMN: (i) it supports experiences that are unrelated to the environment through strong coupling between its sub-systems; (ii) it allows memory representations to form the basis of conscious experience.

Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences.

Sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming are both dissociated experiences related to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Anecdotal evidence suggests that episodes of sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming are related but different experiences. In this study we test this claim systematically for the first time in an online survey with 1928 participants (age range: 18-82 years; 53% female). Confirming anecdotal evidence, sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming frequency were related positively and this association was most apparent between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis episodes featuring vestibular-motor hallucinations. Dissociative experiences were the only common (positive) predictor of both sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. Both experiences showed different associations with other key variables of interest: sleep paralysis was predicted by sleep quality, anxiety and life stress, whereas lucid dreaming was predicted by a positive constructive daydreaming style and vividness of sensory imagery. Overall, results suggest that dissociative experiences during wakefulness are reflected in dissociative experiences during REM sleep; while sleep paralysis is related primarily to issues of sleep quality and wellbeing, lucid dreaming may reflect a continuation of greater imaginative capacity and positive imagery in waking states.

Tracking Potentiating States of Dissociation: An Intensive Clinical Case Study of Sleep, Daydreaming, Mood, and Depersonalization/Derealization.

This study examined in real time the role of sleep and daydreaming as potentiating states for subsequent dissociation in depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD). Research and theory suggests that dissociation may be exacerbated and maintained by a labile sleep-wake cycle in which "dream-like" mentation intrudes into waking life and fuels dissociative symptoms. We explore and extend this idea by examining the state of daydreaming in dissociation. Daydreaming is a state of consciousness between dreaming and waking cognition that involves stimulus-independent and task-unrelated mentation. We report the results of a unique intensive N = 1 study with an individual meeting diagnostic criteria for DDD. Using experience-sampling methodology, the participant rated (six times daily for 40 days) current daydreaming, mood, and dissociative symptoms. At the start of each day sleep quality and duration was also rated. Daydreaming was reported on 45% of occasions and significantly predicted greater dissociation, in particular when daydreams were repetitive and negative (but not fanciful) in content. These relationships were mediated by feelings of depression and anxiety. Sleep quality but not duration was a negative predictor of daily dissociation and also negatively predicted depression but not anxiety. Findings offer initial evidence that the occurrence and content of daydreams may act as potentiating states for heightened, in the moment, dissociation. The treatment implications of targeting sleep and daydreaming for dissociative disorders are discussed.

Corrigendum: Social Daydreaming and Adjustment: An Experience-Sampling Study of Socio-Emotional Adaptation During a Life Transition.

[This corrects the article on p. 13 in vol. 7, PMID: 26834685.].

Social Daydreaming and Adjustment: An Experience-Sampling Study of Socio-Emotional Adaptation During a Life Transition.

Estimates suggest that up to half of waking life is spent daydreaming; that is, engaged in thought that is independent of, and unrelated to, one's current task. Emerging research indicates that daydreams are predominately social suggesting that daydreams may serve socio-emotional functions. Here we explore the functional role of social daydreaming for socio-emotional adjustment during an important and stressful life transition (the transition to university) using experience-sampling with 103 participants over 28 days. Over time, social daydreams increased in their positive characteristics and positive emotional outcomes; specifically, participants reported that their daydreams made them feel more socially connected and less lonely, and that the content of their daydreams became less fanciful and involved higher quality relationships. These characteristics then predicted less loneliness at the end of the study, which, in turn was associated with greater social adaptation to university. Feelings of connection resulting from social daydreams were also associated with less emotional inertia in participants who reported being less socially adapted to university. Findings indicate that social daydreaming is functional for promoting socio-emotional adjustment to an important life event. We highlight the need to consider the social content of stimulus-independent cognitions, their characteristics, and patterns of change, to specify how social thoughts enable socio-emotional adaptation.

Helping the heart grow fonder during absence: Daydreaming about significant others replenishes connectedness after induced loneliness.

People are known to engage in behaviours aimed at replenishing social connectedness after their sense of belonging is threatened. We explored whether the mental strategy of daydreaming about significant others could have similar effects by acting as an imaginary substitute when loved ones are unavailable. Following a loneliness induction, participants (N = 126) were asked to either daydream about a significant other, daydream about a non-social scenario or complete a control task. Social daydreamers showed significantly increased feelings of connection, love and belonging compared to non-social daydreamers and control participants. Consistent with the proposition that social daydreaming replenished connectedness, social daydreamers also behaved more pro-socially and expressed less of a desire to interact with others after daydreaming. These findings demonstrate that through imagination, social daydreaming can replenish connectedness providing a potential strategy for enhancing socio-emotional well-being.

Love is the triumph of the imagination: Daydreams about significant others are associated with increased happiness, love and connection.

Social relationships and interactions contribute to daily emotional well-being. The emotional benefits that come from engaging with others are known to arise from real events, but do they also come from the imagination during daydreaming activity? Using experience sampling methodology with 101 participants, we obtained 371 reports of naturally occurring daydreams with social and non-social content and self-reported feelings before and after daydreaming. Social, but not non-social, daydreams were associated with increased happiness, love and connection and this effect was not solely attributable to the emotional content of the daydreams. These effects were only present when participants were lacking in these feelings before daydreaming and when the daydream involved imagining others with whom the daydreamer had a high quality relationship. Findings are consistent with the idea that social daydreams may function to regulate emotion: imagining close others may serve the current emotional needs of daydreamers by increasing positive feelings towards themselves and others.

Mind-wandering and negative mood: does one thing really lead to another?

Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood before and after mind-wandering. We also measured the affective content, time-orientation and relevance of mind-wandering to current concerns to explore whether the link between mind-wandering and negative mood might be explained by these characteristics. A novel experience-sampling technique with smartphone application prompted participants to answer questions about mind-wandering and mood across 7 days. While sadness tended to precede mind-wandering, mind-wandering itself was not associated with later mood and only predicted feeling worse if its content was negative. We also found prior sadness predicted retrospective mind-wandering, and prior negative mood predicted mind-wandering to current concerns. Our findings provide new insight into how mood and mind-wandering relate but suggest mind-wandering is not inherently detrimental to well-being.