The curious case of the people who can control their goosebumps
July 30, 2018 by Allie Nicodemo, Northeastern University
Take a moment to give yourself goosebumps. Go ahead. We'll wait.
What's that? You can't control your goosebumps? No worries—not everyone can do it. But some people can.
Surprised? You're not alone. James Heathers, a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern, peruses old scientific articles as a hobby. He first discovered this weird phenomenon while reading a case study from 1938. After finding the first example, he went digging for more. But there wasn't much, so Heathers decided to study the anomaly himself.
In a paper published Monday in the online journal PeerJ, Heathers, associate professor Matthew Goodwin, and their collaborators examined 32 people who exhibit voluntary control of piloerection, the scientific name for the ability to control goosebumps.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-07-curious-case-people-goosebumps.html
