Subliminal Messages

Are you sure that you aren’t being subconsciously manipulated into making decisions that you wouldn’t normally make? Are you sure that over the next few days, your purchases of popcorn and Coke will be completely under your conscious control? Are you even sure that I haven’t embedded secret messages into this research paper to manipulate you into giving me an A? If you didn’t consciously perceive “secret messages” but you did perceive them subconsciously, then they would be called subliminal. The word “subliminal” literally means “below the threshold” (Encarta 99). The threshold is the level at which you are aware of stimuli, so if something is below the threshold, or subliminal, you are not consciously aware of it. Therefore, you may be receiving messages and obeying them without even realizing it! What I have set out to prove through my research report is that people are being manipulated by the media through subliminal advertisements. Subliminal advertisements stimulated significant public attention in 1957. It was reported that a motion picture theater in New Jersey had flashed subliminal messages on its movie screen during the showing of the movie Picnic. These messages appeared on the face of the actress Kim Novak every 32 seconds and urged the audience to “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” over a course of six weeks. 49,699 people viewed these subliminal messages. The movie theater reported that its concession sales increased 58%. Some people just dismissed this as a publicity stunt or believed that you can’t be affected by something you can’t perceive. The truth is that nobody has ever been able to reproduce this result. However, this incident caused many people to take interest in the subject of subliminal perception. One such person was Vance Packard who wrote the very popular book, Hidden Persuaders, which appeared in the London Sunday Times as an account of the whole New Jersey ordeal. People who hear of subliminal messages often ask how something that