The Causes & Effects of Subliminal Perception

Nobody wants to think that his actions can be controlled by someone or something else without his knowledge. Yet, hypnosis is based on the power of the hypnotist's subliminal suggestion. In 1957, a researcher named James Vicory reported that people bought more popcorn and Coca Cola when the suggestive phrases of "eat popcorn" and "drink Coca Cola" were inserted during a movie. Yet this information turned out to be a hoax. The use of subliminal perception has been controversial, but has been employed by various organizations since about the 1800s.

Attitudes

• To be called subliminal, the information or stimuli must be presented in a way that the individual is not consciously aware that it is being given. The more you hear a particular song on the radio, the more you tend to like it. If every girl in your school has a certain purse, you are more likely to go buy it. This is a form of subliminal perception. The cause of the liking is the frequency in which you are exposed to the song, product, and even the type of person. This in itself is a form of subliminal messaging, which is why people's attitudes and beliefs affect others.

Visual

• Visual subliminal stimuli involves pictures being presented that attempt to influence how a person feels or behaves in a situation. Foveal and parafoveal priming are the types of visual subliminal perception. They indicate where in the visual field the information is presented; either in the center or peripherally. The cause of the changed response is the subliminal picture or the message the picture portrays. For example, a picture of french fries is flashed during the midst of a movie to influence you to buy those from the snack bar.

Auditory

• Auditory subliminal perception is more controversial than visual. Some do not believe that underlying auditory messages can influence or change your feelings and perceptions. The message might be presented in a song through speeding up the recording so that it cannot be consciously recognized and inserting it into the music. A study presented in the "Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease" found that auditory subliminal messages could influence dream images in subjects. Individuals were more likely to report dream images that closely matched the type of auditory stimuli presented.

Dissociation

• One effect of visual subliminal stimuli is for the individual to more quickly recognize associated concepts with no conscious recollection of the subliminal stimuli. In other words, after being subjected to a subliminal message of the word "love," the person more quickly points out or recognizes other associated concepts, such as a picture of a heart or the color red. Auditory messages might also affect emotional reactions or dream images.

Behavior Changes

• Advertisers hope that the effect of subliminal advertising will be for you to buy more of a certain product. This probably does not occur. There is some research to indicate that both visual and auditory subliminal messages can influence your choice to buy a product or service, while other studies do not confirm these results. Being around violent images and auditory stimuli can promote violent behaviors, but to be truly subliminal, one would have to be unaware of the initial violent prompting.