1. Myth #7: Subliminal Messages can persuade people to buy stuff
What is consciousness?

2. What is a subliminal message?
Below “absolute threshold”
Smallest amount of a stimulus that a person can detect
Sight: A candle flame at 30 miles away
Sound: A watch ticking 20 feet away

3. Subliminal messages
Sights & sounds presented so briefly or faintly that we fail to perceive them.
But can these feeble stimuli influence our behavior?

4. Some hope you’ll think so!
Self-help: “Relax to the Max”
Advertising:
Corporate logos
Widespread belief that these messages work!

5. Number of ice cream flavors, 31.

6. Arrow (efficiency, moving forward)

7. A to z ( and a smile with a dimple)

8. How are they supposed to work?
Claim #1: your brain understands complex meanings of phrases presented at WEAK levels
Claim #2: Subliminal stimuli worm their way into your unconsciousness

10. Modern Psychology
Accepts that much of our mental processing goes on OUTSIDE our immediate awareness.
Serial vs. parallel processing

11. Dual processing Conscious & unconscious work together
Serial processing (CONSCIOUS): controlled
Step by step (one completed, go to the next)
New chess players take one move at a time.
Parallel processing (UNCONSCIOUS): automatic
Processing many different stimuli simultaneously
Experienced chess players, planning moves in advance

13. Color, depth, movement, form

14. Parallel & serial processing
New experiences require MORE conscious attention
Behaviors can become automatic with practice.
What can you do without your conscious attention?

15. Normal dissociation Daydreaming Getting “lost” in a good book.
“Highway hypnosis”

16. Real vs. Pop Psychology
These examples are different from the “non-conscious” processing proposed by proponents.
Holdovers from Freudian view of the mind.

17. Freudian view Unconscious: Primitive, primarily sexual, urges
Operate outside of our awareness
Influences our behavior

19. Our Personality is like an iceberg:
Conscious- things we are aware of.
Preconscious- things we can be aware of if we think of them.
Unconscious- deep hidden reservoir that holds the true “us”. All of our desires and fears.

20. ID: our basic needs and drives
Libido is found here
Part of the unconscious mind
Acts on the “pleasure principle”
Superego: conscience
Creates feelings of guilt at our mistakes
It left uncontrolled, we would die before we broke a rule
Ego: based on reality
Keeps both the ID and Superego in check.
Decides which needs should be met and which should be ignored.

21. Freud WS

22. View popularized in 1950’s James Vicary Subliminal advertising
“Drink Coca-Cola,” “Hungry? Eat Popcorn” flashed 1/3,000 of a second
Reported that sales increased
1962, Vicary admitted he lied

23. But the idea caught on… Subliminal seduction (1973) Wilson Brian Key
Advertisers using sexual images
Warned that single exposure could affect consumers 1 week later!
No real evidence

24. Public alarm U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Found no evidence
But declared it “contrary to public interest”

25. Canadian Broadcasting System
Nationwide test
Viewers informed
Subliminally flashed “phone now” (352 times during program)
Phone usage did NOT increase
A few called in to say they felt hungrier and thirstier!! 
Still NO evidence!

26. Other bizarre claims Backmasking Judas Priest (heavy metal rock band)
Encouraged suicidal behavior or subvert morality of teens
Queen; Another One Bites the Dust
8:57-11:15

27. John Vokey & J. Don Read (1985)
Controlled test
Participants given subtle suggestions as to what they were going to hear, perceived nonexistent messages in backward messages.

28. Top-Down Processing
Your background, experiences, & expectations influence what you perceive.

31. What does research tell us?
Short-lived and modest subliminal effects
Experiment:
Flash “priming” words or pictures briefly
Observers unaware
Speed & accuracy increases when asked to identify a later stimulus

32. Example (Merikle, 1992): Present subject with word stem “gui_ _”
Ask her to form a complete word (“guide” and “guile” are options)
Subliminally flash “direct,” “lead,” “escort” , probability  for “guide”
Flash “deceit,” “treachery,” & “duplicity”,  for “guile”

33. Subliminal messages… Debunked
No good evidence that subliminal messages can affect your behavior!

34. Do these definitions help us understand other phenomena?
Myth #8: During “Out-of-Body” Experiences, People’s Consciousness Leaves Their Bodies

35. Altered state of consciousness?
OBE (out of body experiences)
All cultures report
Can occur in life-threatening experiences, also when relaxed, asleep, dreaming, medicated, using psychedelic drugs (LSD), anesthetized, seizures, migraine headaches
Fantasy-prone personalities

36. Do these theories help us understand NDE’s?
What is common?
Floating above body
Light at the end of a tunnel
Panoramic view of life events
Dead relatives in light
Calm, no pain, joy

37. Near Death Experiences
Why do they occur?
Spiritual hypothesis
Physiological hypothesis
“Light at the end of the tunnel” assignment