Abstract

In recent years of neuroscience area, intersubject correlation (ISC) has been regarded as a suitable method for considering individuals' differences. In this study, we measured the individual's affective responses on the distinctive ASMR stimuli and investigated if there are differences of intersubject correlation values between the experimental conditions. We used Kim and Kim (2020)'s data of the participants' affective responses to ASMR stimuli. We were able to find the consistency of affective responses across subjects by computing the ISC matrix. The participants tended to respond similarly when they watched emotionally similar stimuli. For follow-up analyses, the elements of the matrix were processed to make three different data sets, which consist of the same stimulus pairs set, different stimulus pairs within same emotion sets, and different stimulus pairs between emotion sets. Those data were analyzed using two-way repeated measures ANOVA to test the effects of affective valence and sensory modalities on ISCs. Results showed that when ASMR was positive or audiovisual, the participants tended to respond more similarly to the stimulus. The subjects did not respond similarly in audiovisual condition when they watched negative ASMR stimuli. Although the negative scenes were semantically corresponded to the negative auditory stimuli, the subjects reponses were not consistent.