Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Are we talking about messages put into a medium that cannot be seen by the conscious mind or things like using sex to sell thing with no connection to sex?

The first thing: messages that test subjects can’t report seeing. Usually, by displaying a plainly visible image for a very short interval, such as 1/60 sec. I’ve read technical definitions of subliminal as any image (or, in principle, sound) that less than 50% of the subjects in a test are unable to report seeing. In the Hassin et al experiments, for example, they questioned subjects after the test, and excluded those who reported seeing any image, even if it was not the one actually displayed. In one of the 3 experiments, for example,

”Of 221 participants, 15 reported they saw a flag at least once, 13 reported having seen other types of meaningful stimuli (there were no such stimuli), 21 indicated the mask reminded them of the Israeli flag, and one participant suspected the stimuli were supposed to affect her responses. The data of all these participants were omitted from analyses.”

Although in principle a subliminal message could be not only visual, but auditory, tactile, or some other sense, most uses of the term refer to briefly displayed visual information. There’s not much evidence that other kinds have experimentally measurable effects, though for senses like smell and taste, one could argue that most perception is subliminal, as most humans have a poor ability to describe such sensations precisely, commonly reporting a nothing more specific than a good or bad feeling from some subtle flavor or scent.