Transcript Subliminal Communication

Subliminal Communication
Damn lies from people who
ought to know better!
The Judas Priest
Subliminals case
1990 Federal court case in Reno, NV
Raymond Belknap (killed immediately)
and James Vance (horribly disfigured)
$6.2 million claim against CBS & J. Priest
Conclusion: Judge rules against the
plaintiffs, but….
Definitions
What subliminals are not: using sex to
sell, women in beer ads, half-naked men
in perfume ads, etc.
Classes of subliminals:
audio embeds
backward masking
visual embeds
Nature of the claims made: subliminals
will lead you to unconsciously do things
you wouldn’t consciously do
Some Terminology
The limnus point
Supra-liminal messages
Subliminal messages
The Early Evidence
James Vickery and the New Jersey theatre
experiment
A ripple across America
1958 Canadian experiment
Congressional hearings
National Association of Broadcasting
revises its code
Australia and UK ban subliminals
Wilson Bryan Key and the
pursuit of Subliminals
Subliminal Seduction (1972)
Media Sexploitation (1976)
The Clam Plate Orgy (1980)
The Age of Manipulation (1989)
His thesis
Places he has found subliminals: Ritz
crackers, 18th century paintings, gin ads,
placemats in a restaurant, all kinds of
music, and cigarette ads
Key Quotes
“Every person reading this book has been
victimized and manipulated by the use of
subliminal stimuli directed into his unconscious
mind by the mass merchandisers of media. The
techniques are in widespread use by media,
advertising and public relations agencies,
industrial and commercial corporations, and by
the Federal government itself.”
Wilson Bryan Key
Subliminal Seduction
Key Quotes, Part II
“The books are intended as exposes, critiques,
revelations about the most dangerous affront to
sanity, freedom, and survival that now threatens
the earth’s population. Subliminal indoctrination
may prove more dangerous than nuclear
weapons. The substitution of cultural fantasies
for realities on a massive, worldwide scale
threatens everyone in this precarious period of
human evolution. Present odds appear to favor
total devastation”
W. B. Key, 1989
Why Key (and all the others)
are JUST PLAIN WRONG!!
No supporting theory of perception
Self-sealing arguments
If true, no product would ever fail!
No explanation of agency, that is, why
would writing “SEX” on a Ritz cracker
make you want to buy it?
No empirical support for claims of
subliminal effectiveness
Why Key is wrong, cont.
“There is no empirical documentation for
stronger subliminal effects, such as inducing
particular behaviors or changing motivation.
Moreover, such a notion is contradicted by a
substantial amount of research and is
incompatible with experimentally based
conceptions of information processing, learning
and motivation.”
Dr. Timothy Moore
Cognitive Psychologist
Why Key is wrong, cont.
“During the last few years, we have been
collecting published articles on subliminal
processes, gathering more than 150 articles
from the mass media and more than 200
academic papers on the topic. In none of these
papers is there clear evidence in support of the
proposition that subliminal messages influence
behavior.”
Pratkanis and Aronson,
The Age of Propaganda
Empirical Evidence to the
Contrary
Study by Pratkanis and Aronson
Analyzed subliminal self help tapes
Tapes for improved memory and
improving self-esteem
Tapes divides into four groups: 2 with
accurate labels, two with labels switched
Study participants did pre-tests on
memory and self-esteem, then listened
every day for five weeks
The Results!!!
Retested after five weeks--no evidence of
improvement
HOWEVER
Participants who got tapes labeled “Selfesteem enhancement” believed they selfesteem was higher, WHETHER THEY GOT
THE CORRECTLY LABELED TAPE OR NOT!
Same was true for memory
National Research Council--No effect on
human performance or perception
Why all this matters…
Foreward to Key’s 1989 book written by a
professor of communication in Alabama
Few published, academic responses to Key
People already feel powerless vis a vis the
media--no need to feed that with the myth
of subliminals
Recent Republican ad--’RATS,
superimposed for 1/30th of a second over
Gore’s name