Subliminal message

[Eamba]

Subliminal messages are the messages that are included in other messages that we easily understand, but subliminal messages are usually not taken notice of. They affect the unconsious mind.
It has various uses such as in advertising, to affect people into doing things without realising that the subliminal message gave them the command to do so.
It is banned to be used also almost everywhere as far as I know since it can affect anyone without the person being affected realise what caused his behavior.
It is debatable whether it works or not,but when a television science show displayed three subliminal messages: Yawn - Which had some response from the audience, Itch - Which made a lot of people to scratch themselves and phone your mom which had no response. They basically displayed these messages in caps (YAWN for example) in white and black letters flashing on a white and black background for less than a second.
So what do you think about subliminal messages? I think being banned from use is a good idea since their exact affects are as of yet unknown, but how much can they affect a person? Can showing subliminal messages to (let's say a criminal) make them tell the truth?

 

[mf]

If not enough is known about subliminal messages then it makes no sense to ban them. If they truly are 'unexplored' (I'm not sure about the depth to which they have been investigatBIG STEELICKSed) then simply spending more time researching them is the solution, after which a decision can be made.

p.s. you got 'affects' and 'effects' the wrong way round

 

[Eamba]

Well they seem to work in some scale since the message inch really works. Actually I am not THAT sure about the ban and research parts. But they must be banned because they are proved to not be completely uneffective.

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/sublim.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/28162/main.html


Affect for verbs and effect for nouns, right? Fixed.

 

[Glen]

i have read a couple books on this and while i am not a full-blown alarmist, i must admit it is rather creepy. one of the books i read was dated, but it was pretty disturbing how many ads in the 70s inserted the word SEX somewhere just to get the subconscious to take an interest in it.

however, the less word-oriented aspect of it, while still creepy, is really intriguing. like basic imagery and symbolism that will register in your brain as something important, making memorization of the ad more simple. i can't really think of any examples off-hand since it was awhile ago, but i'll try to dig one of the books up!

 

[Shiv]

Do you mean itch? Because I don't understand how inch can get people to scratch themselves...

 

[Eamba]

Yeah, that's what it is supposed to be. Fixed.

 

[sbc]

You're talking about Brainiac Science Abuse aren't you?

 

[sanjay120]

Google "subliminal messages". It's pretty awesome.

Anyways I'm not affected by subliminal messages so I think I'm safe.

 

[Eamba]

You're talking about Brainiac Science Abuse aren't you?

You got me right there. ;_;