On 28 Jan 2010 at 18:55, Beth Benoit wrote: > > One of my students posted the following, and I am trying to track down the > validity of this. So far I am unconvinced that there is any such > thing as subliminal advertising, but I remain a skeptic in all things. > > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6232801/Subliminal-advertising-really-does-work-claim-scientists.html
Going just from the Telegraph article, two things strike me about it: 1) While the researchers may be claiming that "subliminal advertising really does work" (unless that's just the journalist's spin on it), they appear to have no evidence to support such a claim. Their study as described was concerned with detecting emotional content, not with consumer responses to subliminal advertising messages.Vicary's "drink coke" study may have been a hoax, but at least he had the right idea for what was required for the claim. 2) By definition, the subjects of the Telegraph-reported study were not detecting subliminally, but supraliminally, because they made a conscious verbal report of the emotional content of the flashed words. True, they may not have been able to identify the word itself, but they were consciously detecting some part of its content, even if they had no confidence in their judgements. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=73 or send a blank email to leave-73-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
