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Subliminal Messages

It is a fine summer day and the new James Bond movie that Jim has been waiting for all year has been released at his local theater. Jim and his friends have been enjoying movies at this particular theater for the past five years but today the theater has decided to implement a new and controversial technique. This was a good break for Jim because he was having a very stressful day at work. Jim passed up popcorn and candy at the theater’s concession stand because of the outrageous prices. Jim watches the previews without a second thought and realizes that he feels extremely relaxed. About five minutes into the movie, Jim realizes how hungry he is and decides to pay the $5.99 for popcorn and $4.99 for a snickers bar. Without Jim’s knowledge, he has just been a subject in a new psychological persuasive technique and that his feelings and actions were manipulated. The fact that Jim suddenly got the urge to have popcorn and candy was not a random occurrence. During the previews, the theater distorted pictures of popcorn and candy and placed them into their previews along with the phrases “YOU ARE HUNGRY” and “YOU WANT CANDY AND POPCORN”. These frames were shown so that Jim could not consciously see the distorted messages an


d pictures. However, Jim’s subconscious picked up on the images and triggered his sensation of hunger. The theater also released the scent of popcorn throughout the room in an extremely small dose to stimulate Jim subconsciously. In addition, Jim recollects being extremely stressed out upon entering the theaters, however within the first 15 minutes, he is at ease. The commercials during the previews contained hidden images of relaxing scenes. Once again, these signals were only picked up by Jim’s subconscious senses.

Finally, the fourth type is figurally transformed stimuli. These are words or pictures blurred or distorted to the point that they are unrecognizable (Pratkins and Greenwald 57). Numerous examples of this are seen in movies and advertisements. Author of Subliminal Selling Skills, Kerry L. Johnson, points out that usually sexual innuendos are hidden within images to spark a soothing and comforting feeling for the audience (Johnson 66). Myers mentions, two famous examples of this method, that are the naked man hidden in the camel cigarette logo and the word “sex” spelled out in ice cubes in a liquor ad (Myers 154 and Pictures). In addition, when Jim was watching the previews, he did not notice anything out of the ordinary. However, if Jim were able to carefully examine the previews he would see the subliminal content. Since the theater distorted them to the point where Jim didn’t notice anything, he was not able to consciously perceive them. The main context of the preview and the distorted nature of the subliminal message distracted Jim from realizing that he was being subliminally persuaded.

Subliminal messages have a long, ancient history. Dixon, a psychologist as well as a researcher, mentions that the first philosophical thought of subliminal perception came between 400 BC and AD 1850. The idea that people may be affected by unconscious stimuli may have originated with Democritus, when he mentioned, “Much is perceptible which is not perceived by us.” Other early references to the possibility of subliminal perception occur in Plato’s “Timaeus” and Aristotle’s ideas on the effects of unperceived sensory stimuli on dreams (Dixon 6). However, much of the very early history of the subliminal perception has been hypothetical. The beginning of experimental work did not start until the mid nineteenth century. Since then, the use of subliminal messages has drastically increased.

Some topics in this essay:
Kerry Johnson, CANDY POPCORN”, Researcher Trappey, Broadcasting Corporations, James Bond, Pratkins Greenwald, Little Mermaid”, BC AD, Las Vegas, Batra Ray, subliminal messages, subliminal message, subliminal stimuli, types subliminal, popcorn candy, pratkins greenwald, types subliminal stimuli, form subliminal, greenwald 57, unattended stimuli, hidden images, pratkins greenwald 57, form subliminal stimuli, stimuli pratkins greenwald, stimuli sub-threshold stimuli,

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Approximate Word count = 2256
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)


  

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