Subliminal messages. Do they work?
What are subliminal messages? Do subliminal messages work? Though everyone from Coca-Cola to Disney has been accused of using these tactics, few of us seem to know the truth about what these messages are and whether or not they’re effective.
Some say they can control our minds without us even knowing while others say they don’t even exist at all. There are many differing views on the authenticity, power, and purpose of what are known as subliminal messages.
For some, subliminal messages are synonymous with mind control: a form of insidious mental manipulation designed to alter our behavior so that we’ll buy a certain product, vote for a certain political candidate, or become socially re-engineered in some way without our consent or even our knowledge.
But others take a more positive stance, claiming that subliminal messages can be used as self-development tools to reprogram the subconscious mind for success or to change a specific habit that’s holding you back.
But, for starters, do these kinds of messages really exist? And if so, what are subliminal messages and do subliminal messages work?
Meaning and Types of Subliminal messages
Generally, there are three types of subliminal messages:
1. Subvisual messages — visual cues that are flashed so quickly (generally a few milliseconds) that people don’t perceive them.
2. Subaudible messages — low volume audio cues that are inserted into a louder audio source, such as music.
3. Backmasking — an audio message that is recorded backwards, with the intention of playing it forward to disguise the reversed message.
Regardless of type, subliminal messages often involve sexual cues. The reason? People claim that associating a stimulus with sex can enhance the appeal of the overall content. A pretty bizarre claim, I know. But is there merit to it? Keep reading…
People often confuse subliminal messages with supraliminal messages. The latter are stimuli or signals that we can see or hear but we are not consciously aware of their impact on our behavior.
In 1999, researchers put these kinds of messages to the test in a British supermarket by changing the store music (the supraliminal stimulus) on alternating days in order to encourage customers to buy either French or German wine. Sure enough, when German music played, German wine outsold French wine, and when French music played, French sales were higher. Questionnaires filled out by shoppers afterward demonstrated that they were aware of the music but unaware of the effect that it seemed to have on their behavior.
Subliminal messages, on the other hand, are likewise real and similar to supraliminal messages except that the signal or stimulus is below our threshold of conscious awareness. In other words, you cannot consciously perceive a subliminal message, even if you search for it.
In terms of visual images, a subliminal message would be flashed across a screen in just a few milliseconds, too small a window for you to be aware of it. For an auditory message, it might be delivered at a frequency below humans’ range of detection or hidden beneath another sound.
The idea is that your conscious mind cannot discern these messages and thus the subliminal directive is absorbed unchallenged into your subconscious where it can influence your thoughts and behavior. If you can consciously discern the message, then it wasn’t subliminal.
What this means is that many so-called subliminal messages reported to appear in movies, advertising, music, and so on that are popular with conspiracy theorists aren’t subliminal at all, but most likely either supraliminal or figments of the viewer or listener’s imagination.
How paranoia about subliminal messages began
Subliminal messages first entered the popular consciousness in 1957 when researchers James Vicary and Frances Thayer conducted an experiment that would influence advertising and media — or at least the way the masses felt about those things — for decades to come.
Vicary and Thayer stated that they’d flashed the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” for just 1/3,000 of a second every five seconds to more than 45,000 people during screenings of the movie Picnic over a six-week period. They then reported a jump in popcorn and Coca-Cola sales of 57.5 percent and 18.1 percent respectively during those screenings.
When the news broke, journalists were in an uproar. Norman Cousins of The Saturday Review began his report on the matter with “Welcome to 1984,” a reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel.
Soon, Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders claimed that advertisers were manipulating Americans’ unconscious desires so that they’d buy products they didn’t need. Now, Packard did not use the word “subliminal” in the book and made only a fleeting mention of Vicary and Thayer’s study. Nevertheless, the book became a bestseller, compounding negative public attitudes about subliminal messages.
National alarm bells were sounded. Hearings were held by Congress and the Federal Trade Commission on subliminal messages. But legislation against their use did not pass because it was difficult to legislate against something that could not be consciously seen or heard.
But finally in 1962, after five years of mounting fear and anger about supposed mind control, Vicary made an astonishing announcement: his study was a fake.
He’d never even conducted the experiment and had concocted the whole thing to drum up publicity in order to save his failing marketing business.
But fear regarding subliminal messages long survived Vicary’s fraud. The Federal Communications Commission issued a public notice in 1974 stating that subliminal messages were “contrary to the public interest…[and] intended to be deceptive,” and that those who use them are not protected by the First Amendment (still, there remains no specific federal or state law against subliminal messages in the United States).
