Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Experimental Music and Digital Media

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Despite a wide array of immersive sound technologies available to digital media creators who specialize in making audio-visual content that aims to elicit Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), only a few sound reproduction modalities are widely used: mono/stereo and binaural recording. To date, nearly all research studying ASMR, a bio-sensory phenomenon wherein people feel brain tingles triggered by calming audio-visual cues, has been content to carry out ASMR studies entirely with stereo and binaural sound reproduction methods. Therefore, it stands to reason that more understanding about how diverse immersive sound modalities like wave field synthesis, or three-dimensional spatial audio for virtual reality environments might affect the ASMR experience. Do they enhance ASMR experiences more than binaural, the widely advertized modality for the best ASMR experience? And how do they all, including binaural, compare to non-technologically mediated ASMR experiences? This dissertation sets out to open the dialog surrounding ASMR’s application within the diverse technology space of immersive audio. Through the development and testing of four new immersive sound art works for ASMR, this study evaluates the efficacy of various immersive sound modalities, including binaural audio, VR sound spatialization, distributed networks of smartphone speakers, and non-technologically mediated ASMR performance in eliciting ASMR. Participants testing the new sound art works for ASMR took a survey testing for five-point Likert scale rankings of ASMR-related descriptors in relation to experiencing each new sound art work for the first time. The findings, at the very least, suggest that immersive sound technologies can produce effective ASMR experiences, pointing a light toward a greater variety of immersive sound technologies, and providing viable avenues for ASMRtists to create new and interesting ASMR art works.

Date

7-12-2024

Committee Chair

Allison, Jesse T.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.6528

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