Subliminal Perception
Deceiving Messages
When we think about subliminal perception we usually think of a big publicity stunt for a company. What many people don't know is that subliminal perception can really be effective. Any person might say, "Naw, I can't fall for that I'm not stupid enough to fall into their trap." For most other cases subliminal perception will attack a person in their sub-conscious state of mind. In one form or anther, subliminal perception takes many forms. It could be presented in an audio, visual, and in the most likely places we don't tend to find subliminal perception.
What is subliminal perception? Messages, that are either visual or audio, that are below a persons perceptible threshold. The messages that the brain would be receiving would be ones that the conscious mind would not notice at first. It would take the person to view or hear the same message over and over again before it being revealed to the conscious mind. With some people the messages are loud and clear the first time the message is sent to them.
The first time any type of subliminal message was seen was reported in the late 1950's. This happened in a New Jersey movie theater. During the showing of a movie the theater flashed in one third of a millisecond, "Eat popcorn and Drink Coke"(Eskenazi, Greenwald, Pratkins 252). For that millisecond the audience in the theater was effected. Sales of popcorn and coke increased significantly. This sparked up controversy in the television and radio community. All major television and radio stations banned subliminal advertising. Then it was later found out that this was all just a publicity stunt to promote the theater.
Today's subliminal messaging is now as obvious as flashing words on a screen. One must observe closely to what the true hidden meaning of the advertisement is. Many times people can not find anything subliminal about an advertisement at all. As the old saying says, "Sex sells," it really...
Please login to view the full essay...