The Effect of a Binaural Beat Combined with Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response Triggers on Brainwave Entrainment

Abstract

Brainwave entrainment means matching the frequency of the brainwave to that of external rhythmic stimuli. Auditory stimuli have been mostly used in brainwave entrainment. In this study, we aim to induce a 6 Hz brainwave in accord with the theta wave that activates in non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 1. Here, we use a novel auditory stimulus combined with a binaural beat (BB) and an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) trigger (AT) because AT could give psychological stability to users while BB induces activation of target brain signals for desired mental states (e.g. meditation or sleep). In our experiment, we investigate an effect of the combined auditory stimuli with the three different decibel ratios. As a result, we confirm that the proposed stimuli could induce both effects of BB and AT, simultaneously. Also, statistical analysis on questionnaires shows that changes of emotional states before and after stimulation are statistically significant.