Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA23392 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:23:27 +0100 Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 07:18:06 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Subliminal advertising To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3CBED59E.C719247C@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en,ja References: <JJEIIFOCALCJKOFDFAHBGEGHELAA.richard@brodietech.com> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Richard and Wade,
> If you think "subliminal" means "invisible" you are right... without
> reaching your senses nothing can have an effect. But that's not what the
> word means. Subliminal means beneath the level of conscious awareness. There
> are plenty of such phenomena, both natural and manufactured. There's an air
> compressor across the street from my apartment. Usually I don't notice when
> it's on but when it shuts off I notice a feeling of relief. Even some
> incidental music in movies could be said to be subliminal, yet composed to
> produce an effect. I think we agree on this subject except perhaps you don't
> have a distinction between conscious awareness and unconscious perception. I
> think such a distinction is real and useful.
In advertising, the term is used quite loosely. Often it seems to be
used for "symbolic", or "unattended to".
Wade, there is a fact <g> called the Poetzl Effect, discovered in the
1920s. If you show people a picture and ask them to describe it, there
is a high probability that elements of the picture that they did *not*
describe will appear in their dreams in the next day or two.
Technically, those elements are not subliminal, but they are unattended
to. The Poetzl Effect may be at work in advertising. Elements in an add
that are outside of its focus may remain in our consciousness for a
while (though unattended to). If these elements are sexually suggestive
in a vague sense, we may feel sexier for a while than we otherwise would
have. I doubt if that has anything to do with whether we buy the
product, though. ;-)
One of the neatest subliminal experiments I know of had subjects watch
something on a screen. From time to time a noxious stimulus was flashed
briefly (for less than 1/20 sec.) on either the right or left side of
the screen. Nobody reported seeing these images, but they turned their
eyes away from them. They perceived them, but subliminally.
Best,
Bill
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