Subliminal Seduction - Fact or Fantasy ?

<center>http://www.infinet.com/~mike/thesis4.html#fig35</center>

Is seeing believing?

continuation of subliminal seduction thread...

Ask David Copperfield. Or Penn Jillette. Or James Randi.
Better yet, those poor souls who saw a spaceship instead of a comet.
If there is scientific proof of subliminal suggestion, AND that advertising firms are using it, provide it.
If all you have is Andy Keys accusing a vast number of businesses of participating in a vast global conspiracy, you have nothing.

I believe I see two rectangles with a red X at the center. Gratuitous graphics are not going to further any causes here; please help us save bandwidth and provide links to existing material on another server.

A reminder - civil tongues shall prevail.
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Nickrz
For The Straight Dope

dragonfly99, I have just read over the paper to which you provided a link. I'll want to spend a bit more time with it before making up my mind. Are you the author? If so, I'll probably have some questions for you in a day or two.

Please post any other links you have, you've engaged my curiousity.

I have looked at many ads, commercial product labels, magazine covers, etc., since first being exposed to the idea. The only subliminal thingies I ever see are the word "sex" airbrushed or Photoshopped into fashion or pinup-style pictures, and skull imagery in some (not all) alcohol ads. Thinking that either the alarmists are right or that I'm suggestible, I've tried to find some of the other stuff they say is pervasive, but don't; the wide range of sex words (fuck, suck, etc) don't seem to be there; the hidden sexual imagery (nudes cavorting, vaginas embedded in the curtain fabric, etc) not apparent.

Of course maybe I just have sex on my mind when I look at the pictures, who knows?



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Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post

slythe wrote:"If there is scientific proof of subliminal suggestion, AND that advertising firms are using it, provide it. If all you have is Andy Keys accusing a vast number of businesses of participating in a vast global conspiracy, you have nothing."

Just what do you consider valid and irrefutable scientific proof? This is only conjecture on my part, but psychology at the college level is not a one semester course.
And I highly doubt that Madison Avenue advertising agency executives just unwittingly cut and paste a few bland graphics from their local Kinkos when they assemble an ad for one of their many multi-billion dollar a year clients. But who knows?

As far as a coherent and binding conspiracy goes - Why do you keep tipping your hand?

Your reasoning here smacks of the frivilous lawsuit logic of uhmmm.... errrr.... ambushed , who left with his tail between his legs.

One dimensional psycho-strawman anyone?

AuraSeer wrote:
"Are you the author?"

No, I am not. I have only had the fortuitous circumstance of having read Dr. Key's Subliminal Seduction quite by accident many years ago, as I picked it up at my local Salvation Army thrift store by chance.

Here is some links that I have been able to scoop up.

Subliminal Advertising Effects in Magazine Advertisements (http://www.infinet.com/~mike/thesis.html)
Questionable Subliminals (http://www.banzai.net/sublime/questionable/qsublims.html)
Subliminals in Windows98 ? (http://www.tcp.ca/gsb/PC/subliminals-in-win98.html)
More Subliminals in Windows95 ? (http://tcp.ca/gsb/PC/More_Subliminals.html )
The Subliminal Scares (http://www.parascope.com/articles/0497/sublimd.htm)

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

I see that my gentle cajoling has had no effect on your insulting debating style, Dragonfly. Please cease and desist, or I will see to it your opinions no longer grace this forum. Enough's enough.
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Nickrz
For The Straight Dope

Any proof.
Any proof at all.
Evidence of a scientific nature.
Non-speculative gathering of facts.
A single double-blind study.
FACTS.

somebody wrote:" see that my gentle cajoling has had no effect on your insulting debating style Dragonfly. Please cease and desist, or I will see to it your opinions no longer grace this forum. Enough's enough."

I guess that censorship is the operative word here. Would you kindly point out what you find objectionable? I really do not understand your point. Just what is your point??

It would appear that you want me to dumb-down the content of my postings. Sorry, can't do that.

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

I don't want you to "dumb down," I want you to lighten up. Gratuitous insults are not called for in this forum. If you have trouble isolating the needlessly offensive language in your posts, then drop me a line and I'll point out one or two.

If censorship is what you crave, then I'll be happy to oblige you, but I'd like to think we are intelligent enough to avoid something so irksome. All of us welcome your
thought-provoking input, we just could do with a little less provoking.
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Nickrz
For The Straight Dope

slythe wrote:"Any proof.
Any proof at all.
Evidence of a scientific nature.
Non-speculative gathering of facts.
A single double-blind study.
FACTS."

In your behaviorist zeal to refute and of course oversimplify the notion of subliminally embedded advertisements, you seem to gloss over the non-dynamic and non-responsive nature of my one-dimensional psycho strawman.

Therefore I shall resurrect him.... as a multi-lingual death head! He speaks and contains tremendous amounts of information and communicates and thinks only in abstract (to some) symbols, relative of course to the language that he is currently speaking.


But there IS a mechanism that is culturally induced that can result in collective repression of his thoughts, ideas, and attitudes at the cultural level.

And that mechanism is.... Why money (materialistic greed) of course.

The question is: At what cultural level does this repression take place? Is it all encompassing or is it culturally specific or is it trivial and easyily explainable with one or two questionable scientific studies?

The answer in part lies in the inability of modern science and modern scientific method to separate the observer from the observation. That is just the real world of empirical science. We don't need to spend our time making exuses for it. Personal bias and subjectivity are still very much an issue.

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Koo Koo Katchoo.

Goodbye walrus.

dragonfly - admit it, you found a coherent post on some other subject and you're just randomly cutting and pasting the bits that you think sound impressive.

BTW, I checked out the sites provided and I didn't see anything about proof - but I do have an unexplained desire to Drink More Ovaltine.

It would appear that you want me to dumb-down the content of my postings. Sorry, can't do that.
Well, I'd certainly agree that it would be hard to dumb-down your posts.

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Tom~

As I wrote near the end of the previous thread, there is one particular individual whom my conscience will not allow me to debate for ethical reasons. But my words were clearly not intended to suggest that I meant to drop out of the ongoing discussions altogether! Therefore, I submit this two-part list of URLs and other references for AuraSeer and anyone else who might be interested...


First, here are some excepts from: "Subliminal Perception" (http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/papers/SubliminalPerception.html) (all emphasis mine):

"Other claims regarding the extraordinary efficacy of subliminal perception also lack substance. In the 1970s, Wilson Bryan Key ... claimed subliminal sexual symbols or objects are often used to entice consumers to buy and use various products and services. ... Although Key's claims are widely known, there is no independent evidence indicating that embedded subliminal words, symbols, or objects are used to sell products. Furthermore, even if such embedded subliminal stimuli were used, there is no evidence to suggest this would be an effective method for influencing the choices that consumers make."

"Belief in the power of subliminal perception ... is so widespread that a number of companies have been able to exploit this belief by marketing subliminal self-help audio and video tapes. ... there have been a number of controlled studies designed specifically to test of the efficacy of the tapes. All of these studies have failed to find any evidence consistent with the claims of the companies that market these tapes."


Although this paper (http://eslvcr.fireplug.net/bcskeptics/ratenq/Re6.1-SublimTapes.html) deals primarily with "subliminal" tapes, here's an interesting excerpt regarding a court case involving alleged subliminal messages, in which T. E. Moore of York University recounts...

"some of the testimony by the plaintiff's star witness, Wilson Brian Key, which reads more like a Marx Brothers' routine than court proceedings. In a series of replies to defence counsel's probes, Key admits having made one far-fetched claim after another about subliminal depravities lurking in well-known ads."

Also from a court proceeding, here is Key's definition of science: "science is pretty much what you can get away with at any point in time." Talk about one-dimensional psycho strawmen (well, psycho, anyway!) With an attitude like that, why should anyone expect evidence - or even minimal rationality - from Key?

In Moore's words: "Key's books constitute quintessential pseudoscience; they contain no citations, no references, and no documentation for any of his proclamations."

As Moore writes in his article "Scientific consensus and expert testimony: lessons from the Judas Priest trial." (Skeptical Inquirer, Nov-Dec 1996 v20 n6 p32(8)):

"There is not now, nor has there ever been, any reliable empirical evidence that subliminal stimulation can produce anything other than fairly brief and relatively inconsequential reactions. Further, there is no evidence whatsoever that subliminal directives can compel compliance"


From an article by respected science writer Martin Gardner: "Th[e] tendency of chaotic shapes to form patterns vaguely resembling familiar things is responsible for one of the most absurd books ever written about advertising: Subliminal Seduction, by journalist Wilson Bryan Key ... It's hard to imagine anyone taking this nonsense seriously, especially since the author's many references to "recent studies" never disclosed where they took place or who the experimenter was."


Here's one of Key's main "ideas" from a positive review (http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/mu0007.htm) of his book The Age of Manipulation:

"Key hypothesizes that the male homosexual taboo is at play in many of these ads. When we perceive these images subliminally but repress them, he says, it creates an irrational attraction to the advertisement."

In other words, embedding homoerotic imagery in ads is what makes 'em work! I'd say "irrational" is the Key word here!

From "The Selling of Subliminal Perception" (http://eslvcr.fireplug.net/bcskeptics/meetings/Mt940907.html):

"Wilson Bryan Key, whose paranoid fears of manipulation by subliminal advertisers punctuate his pop-psychology best-sellers, Subliminal Seduction and The Clam Plate Orgy. ... no reputable scientist supports Key's belief in the power of such messages..."

The Los Angeles Times reported "that many psychologists treat Key's research in subliminal suggestion as a gimmick which cannot be disproved."

From "Subliminal Persuasion Is A Myth" (http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mark432-b1/sublim~1.htm):

"Research on subliminal persuasion goes back over a hundred years and includes more than a hundred articles from the mass media and more than two hundred academic papers on the topic.

In none of these papers is there scientific evidence that subliminal messages influence behavior."

"If subliminal advertising is being used successfully, those with expertise in its applications would advertise and promote their talents in the many magazines and newspapers specializing in advertising, marketing, broadcasting, audience research, public relations, etc. So far, there has never been an ad for subliminal advertising production or design."

"The history of the subliminal controversy teaches us much about persuasion--but not the subliminal kind. If we are such a technological society, why do we continue to accept the power of subliminals without proof? Our belief is an act of faith not logic. ... In general, popular press articles ignore scientific evidence and method to critically evaluate subliminal findings. Positive findings are emphasized and negative results rarely reported."

From the article "Subliminal perception: Facts and fallacies" (SI 16: 273-281) comes:

"Many people believe that most advertisements contain hidden sexual images or words that affect our susceptibility to the ads. This belief is widespread even though there is no evidence for such practices, let alone evidence for such effects."

"... belief in such an influence is primarily the consequence of the writings and lectures of just one person - Wilson Bryan Key... Key offers no scientific evidence to support the existence of subliminal images; nor does he provide any empirical documentation of their imputed effects..."

A reviewer of one of Key's books writes: "Why is there a market for yet another re-run of this troubled man's paranoid nightmares?"

(continued next post)

(continued from previous post)

A quotation from the book Ice Cube Sex: The Truth About Subliminal Advertising: "Subliminal advertising does not affect consumer buying behavior, advertising recall, or any other marketplace behavior."


From "Subliminal Advertising: Grand Scam Of The 20Th Century":

"In September 1957, a self-employed market researcher named James McDonald Vicary claimed to have developed a new means of communication that would make people buy products in response to invisible messages. He called it subliminal advertising. Reports of his famous but fictitious Popcorn Experiment in a movie theater to increase sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn survive to this day, and are perpetuated by otherwise knowledgeable and reliable people. But the entire operation was a fraud, supported by intensive publicity, aimed at bamboozling advertisers. Common sense suggests that if subliminal advertising really could cause us to do things we do not want to do, it would be easy to make people stop taking illegal drugs, stealing cars, abusing children, driving drunk, and cheating on their income taxes."

From an outline (http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~gfong/psych101/lo6-subliminal.html) for a psychology lecture: "Conclusion from reviews of the literature on subliminal processes: no evidence for subliminal effects on behavior"

In an article (http://www.actwin.com/NLP/random/sublm02.htm) titled "What's Wrong With This Picture? The Fallacies Underlying 'Subliminal Persuasion'", there's a discussion of the totally false "Eat Popcorn" / "Drink Coke" story that advertising "specialist" James Vicary made up in order to try to boost his struggling firm's income...

"The reports of this fed the public fears and imagination in a powerful way which turned out to be much more potent than the method in Vicary's [non-existent] study. His study in fact turned out to be a hoax, as admitted by Vicary (Danzig, 1962) and demonstrated by repeated failures to replicate the supposed effect. (Weir, 1984; Advertising Age, 1958). Nor have there ever been any successful replications to this date, or any clear evidence that subliminal messages can significantly influence behavior."

Quoted from an article (http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/issues/97jun/advert.htm) in The Atlantic Monthly concerning subliminal advertising:

"There was just one problem with [Key's peer Vance Packard's] The Hidden Persuaders: it was wrong. ... there was -- and still is -- little proof that these efforts to engineer action through manipulation of the unconscious led to any behavioral changes favorable to specific marketers. As for James Vicary's experiment in subliminal advertising -- it was a hoax: Vicary later admitted that he hadn't done what he'd claimed. Several subsequent studies of the effectiveness of embedded messages have shown it to be virtually impossible to use them to produce specific, predictable responses."

This article (http://fly.hiwaay.net:8000/~crispen/rants/subception.html), "Subliminal Perception (Subception) and why it's bogus" reminds us that: "No unscientific theory can ever be proven wrong."

From a "Socratic dialog" (http://www.shelby.net/ggbolich/page4d1.html#sub) comes this quotation:

"The fact is, no reputable scientific research has found that subliminal messages live up to their claims. Actually, I can go further than that and state that research has shown just the opposite--experimental suubects do not perceive subliminal messages ..."

Here are excerpts from another article (http://www.hooked.net/~ghent/subliminal.txt) that discusses Key and his claims...

"The subliminal mechanism that concerned Key most was the 'embed' -- a word, slogan, or symbol inserted faintly -- so faintly it is not perceived -- into advertisements. 'You cannot pick up a newspaper, magazine, or pamphlet, hear radio, or view television without being assaulted subliminally by embeds,' Key claimed. Key saw a subliminal conspiracy of major proportions at work."

"Readers of Keys book will notice that significant questions remain, however. Where is Key's documentation? Are there no witnesses to the preparation of the embeds? If subliminals are used by virtually every advertiser, why can't Key quote just one of them on how they use the tactics? Of the thousands of illustrators and technicians who have staged the multi-billion dollar embedding campaigns, is there not one individual who tired of such deception and came forward with the truth? Apparently not...

"Instead of presenting sturdy evidence, Key backs up his case with a hodgepodge of theories from the fields of communication studies, media criticism, and Freudian psychology, along with a heavy dose of his own ruminations on embeds."

"Perhaps the main lesson to be learned from Subliminal Seduction and Key's other books is that if you look hard enough, you can see some arguably suspicious things in all sorts of unlikely places. Anyone who has ever looked for images in the clouds knows the technique."

"If nothing else, Key's unique assertions -- for instance: "Bestiality may be illegal throughout most of the world, but, at the symbolic level, it appears to have sold a lot of Sprite" -- have added a hysterically funny ingredient to the heated debate over the danger of subliminals."

(speaking of subliminal humor, if you're a MST3K fan like myself, you might want to check out this (http://199.106.87.9/~boffo/MiSTings/MelvinHarryPollack/Subliminal.txt) "MiSTing" of the delusional Dr. Key!)

Finally, here's a short list citing a few of the sources used or referenced by the authors of the above:

Burnham, J. C. 1987. How superstition won and science lost: Popularizing science and health in the United States. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Cheesman, J., and P. M. Merikle. 1986. Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual processes. Canadian Journal of Psychology 40: 343-367.

Moore, T. E. 1988. The case against subliminal manipulation. Psychology and Marketing 46: 297-316.

Pratkanis, A. R. 1992. The cargo-cult science of subliminal persuasion. Skeptical Inquirer 16: 260-272.

Moore, T.E. 1992. Subliminal perception: Facts and fallacies. Skeptical Inquirer, 16: 273-281.

Pratkanis, A. R., and A. G. Greenwald. 1988. Recent perspectives on unconscious processing: Still no marketing applications. Psychology and Marketing 5: 337-353.

Pratkanis, A. R., J. Eskenazi, and A. G. Greenwald. 1994. What you expect is what you believe (but not necessarily what you get): A test of the effectiveness of subliminal self-help audiotapes. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 15: 251-276.

Okay so I've been sitting here reading this thread and the previous long (often combative) one. Here's my take as an audience member.

I was taught about the exsistence of subliminal messages and believed they exist. I can say though my mind has been changed. Reading the ongoing debate here, I find compelling evidence with citations on one side; and arguments that don't make any sense to me on the other side (I STILL don't have a clue what this strawman thing is).

Sorry Dragonfly, but not only have you not convinced me, you have helped show me the fallacy of subliminal messages.

Ambushed -- X L N ! A truly momumental effort! My sincere congratulations!

There is this unfortunate tendancy of trollers (and extremists) to yell loud, to be obnoxious and immobile and repetitive, over and over and over and over... so that eventually the rational people give up discussion with them. Then the loonies think they've won. I've seen this with Holocaust-deniers, and with the more extremist positions (at both ends) of the abortion question, inter alia. I laughed out loud when I saw our little friend's comment about how you'd been defeated, ambushed, knowing that you'd only hit the disgust-point. In any case, I'm delighted to see your very cogent and thorough debunkment. Thanks!

Hey Nickrz:

Kinda sorry I asked in the first place ;)!

dragonfly99, your arguments are far stronger in this thread than the last, as you're now posting links to support your claims. This makes it much easier to follow your reasoning; please keep it up.

However, I do think that ambushed and slythe have got your sources outclassed so far. As I think has been said, you are the one making a positive assertion, that subliminal advertising is in widespread use. To convince people of this, you must show proof that you are correct; the "other side" need merely point out any holes in your argument.
Your first cite (in the OP) is a library research study, based primarily on Key; the second set mainly contain opinions or assumptions, without any research to back them up. Have you any cites for a controlled. scientific study?

You also wrote:
...the non-dynamic and non-responsive nature of my one-dimensional psycho strawman.

There's that strawman again. Once again I ask: what do you mean when you use this term?

Dragonfly: Are we talking about a portrait of Siegmund Freud woven out of straw, with the word SEX hidden in the background?
I saw one at a yard sale years ago and said
"I want that two dimensional Psycho strawman with subliminal adversising" but I didn't have the Fifty cents

A straw man is a false argument. Basically what it means is that one debater sets up a weak argument with the supposition that his/her opponent will use it. The debater then easily defeats the argument (just like you'd easily defeat a man made of straw in a fight), and puts forward the assumption that "hey, I just destroyed the argument they would have used, so I must be the correct one".

However, I'd venture to say that the only one using a straw man argument here is Dragonfly99.

Kudos, Ambushed on your treatment of this subject. Many years ago, I wrote a college research paper on this very subject and used some of these same sources.

My only objection is to your inclusion of Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders in Wilson Keys' class. It's been a while since I read Packard, but as I recall, he argued that advertisers used psychology to influence buyers. Surely this is manifest to anyone who has watched a few TV commercials. Packard may have overestimated the sophistication of advertisers in the 50's, but I don't think he said there were imbedded pictures in magazine ads which drove us to purchase rum. The Hidden Persuaders was more an examination of how advertisers used psychology and sociology to present their products to the masses.

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President of the Vernon Dent fan club.

AuraSeer wrote:"You also wrote:...the non-dynamic and non-responsive nature of my one-dimensional psycho strawman... There's that strawman again. Once again I ask: what do you mean when you use this term?"

Dr. Key says it best:The heaviest opposition to the notion of subliminal stumuli originates among groups or individuals with strong predisposition to view human behavior in a mechanical-man perspective, quantitatively measurable, environmentally motivated, derived from deterministic free will, and defined by consciously knowable criteria.
The Clam-Plate Orgy

Marshall McLuhan once commented:
"1984 really happened around 1930, but we didn't notice..."

Dr. Key points out that:...this could have happened only buy first convincing intellectuals to restrict their efforts to the study of cognitive (what is consciously perceived) psychology, sociology, anthropolgy and linguistics. And so we did.
The Clam-Plate Orgy

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Ambushed I will return to your far-fetched reactionary claims later. On the surface they appear to be only nothing more than thinly disguised personal attacks on Dr. Key.

Once again you rely on frivilous lawsuit type logic and laughable personal attacks (with references no less) than with any hard proof or valid science.Sans cajones


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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Silly, silly ambushed. You responded to a incredible claim with logic and facts.
Bad ambushed, bad.

Excerpted from the FCC's 1984 Statement on Subliminals (http://www.parascope.com/articles/0497/sublimdc.htm)
Subliminal perception has been a persistent issue at the Commission
spanning over 35 years but it has seldom required significant amounts of Commission time and resources. That is largely because the Commission's stand on the issue has been clear and consistent.


The FCC's position is that the use of such techniques involves intentional deception and, thus, is inconsistent with a licensee's obligation to broadcast in the public interest. The Commission defines subliminal projection as a technique of projecting information below the threshold of sensation or awareness.


This is not the subtle but overt message delivered by the attractive model selling toothpaste, this is the message that is so subtle the person is not intended to be at all aware of the attempt to persuade.

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

I wish I wasn't such a strong partisan in this debate so that my words would carry greater weight, but I just have to humbly and sincerely congratulate bill422 on his intellectual integrity. It's very reassuring that reason, logic, and evidence can still lead people to change their views. I guess The Straight Dope just seems to (usually, anyway) attract people with a higher degree of self-knowledge and honesty!


CKDextHavn and Frankd6, I thank you for your very kind words. It's nice to know my efforts were appreciated! Thanks!


smegmum V, I want you to know that you're responsible for all the little beads of mucousy milk all over my monitor. What a mess!


And regards slythe "scolding" me for my foolish arguments: I'm so embarrassed, slythe... :( If only I had the powerful and lucid intellect of a flying insect! Alas, I'm forced to settle for reason, logic, science, evidence, and reality.

Perhaps I should try to get my hands on one of smegmum's artistic door mats!

somebody wrote:"It's very reassuring that reason, logic, and evidence can still lead people to change their views."

Oh. Is that right?

I'm still waiting, and not too surprisingly I maight add, for any semblence or logic, reasoning and evidence in any of your posts. Personal attacks seem to be the order of the day.

But what can you expect from someone who bases several redundant and highly superficial posts on a frivilous lawsuit? Who continuously blurs lines of logic? Who can only resort to euphemisms and factual distortions and wholesale misrepresentations?

You keep dodging the issues at hand here ambushed. And for good reason. You don't know what you are talking about.

Your "dumbing down" of this thread is simply ineffective but amazing. ;)

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Hey, folks, I was just passing by and I thought you might be interested in some of the sad-yet-silly history of the FCC's formal position on so-called "subliminal" messages and images in broadcasting.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that it all stems from the lies James Vicary told in 1957 about his fabricated "experiment" of "Eat Popcorn / Drink Coke" infamy. Nobody knew for certain that he was lying until he admitted it five years later (and very few people ever heard about his retraction anyway). In the meantime, Vicary was hyping his bogus "subliminal advertising" baloney for all it was worth.

When people started hearing of what was erroneously referred to as the subliminal Popcorn/Coke "study", the American public did what it always does with unsubstantiated but "catchy" allegations: it accepted the stories as scientific "gospel" truth! From that point on, any hope of enlightening the public at large about the non-existence of "subliminal advertising" was doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

Naturally, the public was anxious and frightened by the idea that they might be manipulated subliminally (nobody seems to mind very much about overt manipulation). Though in reality there was nothing to be frightened about, people understandably demanded protection from what appeared to be an insidious plot to "brainwash" them. Thus, they turned to the Government to save them from this apparent technological and psychological peril.

Representative William Dawson, a Republican from Utah, jumped eagerly to the rescue! Falling for Vicary's silly "subliminal" BS as thoroughly as did just about every other layman, Dawson wrote a series of letters to the FCC demanding that they outlaw "subliminal" messages in broadcasting.

After each letter, the FCC would reply with more and more conciliatory language and modify their formal position a bit in order to placate Dawson. Then the cycle would repeat. And repeat.

The eventual result is that we now have an FCC regulation that prohibits something that doesn't even exist! Ain't politics grand?

Next we're gonna have a law that prohibits us from mistreating elves, or maybe ghosts!

(Interestingly, a lot of this information can be found in a series of articles at a URL recently given in another post!)

For the record, I've decided to start drinking a shot everytime I read the phrase "one dimensional psycho-strawman" or whatever. As of this posting, D99 owes me a new bottle of vodka.

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"I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn't."

In your behaviorist zeal to refute and of course oversimplify the notion of subliminally embedded advertisements, you seem to gloss over the non-dynamic and non-responsive nature of my one-dimensional psycho strawman.

Therefore I shall resurrect him.... as a multi-lingual death head! He speaks and contains tremendous amounts of information and communicates and thinks only in abstract (to some) symbols, relative of course to the language that he is currently speaking.

(I just thought Jophiel could possibly use another drink. Maybe that's the only way it makes sense!)

D99:But what can you expect from someone who bases several redundant and highly superficial posts on a frivilous lawsuit? Of course, the "frivilous lawsuit" was the silly waste of court time brought by your boy, Keys. You are the one who has refused to provide a single shred of evidence for your demented ideas beyond your own obvious dementia. To date, the closest thing you have provided as evidence has been a handful of links to quotations from (the confessed liar) Vicary, the deluded Keys (in which he makes assertions without providing evidence) and a college kid who simply accepts the statements of Keys at face value.

I know, you scoff at psychology and the behavioral sciences. Fine. I also read Keys when he first published. Reviewing his original book I discovered a phenomenon that has often been repeated with "backward masked" records: people can only see his images after he tells them to see them and where to find them. On most of the photographic enlargements in the book, it is impossible for a person to see the same thing that Keys claims without having Keys explain where to look. This is on the enlargements where the alleged pictures have supposedly been made large enough to see plainly. We tried it in college. We would show the enlargement to several people. Among the people who were told what to look for and where, maybe half the people could make out some image that bore a resemblance to Key's claims--the other half could not. Among the people who were told that there was a suggestive image in the picture, but who were not told where it was, only a quarter of the people could find a suestive image and they only rarely saw an image where Keys claimed it would be and they never saw the image Keys claimed was there. Among the group that was asked "Do you see any images in this picture?" with no preparation of what to see, no one found any images. The only subliminal messages in Keys books are the ones that Keys creates by claiming to have found images and then stating where he found them.

Utter poppycock.

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Tom~

Another quotation from the FCC statement DF posted (directly following the part he quoted):
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That said, two things are important to state at this juncture. First, as a social scientist I must note that there is considerable doubt in the scientific community that these techniques are very effective.

There is a whole host of problems, stemming from such things as the fact that individuals have highly varying levels of perception, making generalized threshold levels of subliminal perception very complicated. Another such problem is that to the extent that these messages are designed to change people's behavior, scientists as well as advertisers know that subtle appeals are often more interesting than they are effective.

But my second point is of more direct relevance -- that the Commission's prohibition against use of this technique by broadcasters is clear regardless of whether the technique is effective or not.
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In other words, the efficacy of this technique is irrelevant to the FCC.

Ambushed, your statement that the FCC "prohibits something that doesn't even exist" seems overly strong, but I could stand behind "doesn't even work".

As long as enough people believe <sex> that subliminal advertising works, I am sure that <send me your money> somebody has tried it. I don't think it is common.

Sh*t It's a "ONE dimensional psycho-strawman"
According to Euclid the only one dimensional figure is a LINE.
substitue the word "line" for "one dimensional psycho-strawman" and D99 almost sounds like a rational person, rather than some ranting Art Bell caller

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&lt;insert witty sig here&gt;

tomndebb wrote:"Utter poppycock."

Then why are you here? Either you are a *junk scientist* in training or just sadly misinformed on the subject matter at hand.

Remember that at one time state of the art science believed the earth to be at the center of the universe and that the earth was shaped like a disc and if you sailed off far enough into the horizon you would fall into the Abyss.

Kinda like what's happened here. (http://www.graffiti.org/nyc/fchof99.jpg)

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Does anyone here support Dragonfly's position? If so could you please step in and provide a better explanation.

Incidently, your last link labeled "Here" to the wall of graffiti made about as much sense as the rest of your arguments....but I do have an urge to drink a Coke.

Mojo wrote:"Perhaps you could clarify a point for me, Dragonfly. Lets assume that images are being embedded "subliminally" into photos in advertisements. What effect will a skull in an ice cube or a skeletal Uncle Sam have on me as a consumer? What effect should they have? Why would a subliminal image in an ad be more effective than an overt one?"

Exactly the kind of question[s] I innocently wanted to ask at the start of the original thread (now closed). Instead I ran into a firestorm of psuedo-logic, pseudo-science, misrepresentations, personal attacks ( directed towards I and Dr. Key!)and scientific-flavored propaganda (read: mainstream denials).

I couldn't help but notice the San Cajones quality of most of their remarks and "statements of facts". In fact they were engaging me in obvious obfuscation tactics either to misrepresent my innocent inquiries or distort the truth. I soon found out that it was both!

As I have mentioned earlier I have read Subliminal Seduction in the early 1980's but in reality I had forgotten how provocative and ground-shattering his ideas and hypotheses were. Hence my innocent entrance into this thread. I really was expecting a debunking along the lines of "Yeah, it's there, but it can't be tested in a clinical situation", "it's a shot in the dark", "absolutely no noticable effect", etc. I have yet to see it.

If these others who publicly state that they doubt the validity of Dr. Key's work really believe what they publicly pronounce, I sincerely doubt that they would invest as much time and energy as they have here in an attempt to discredit him and on top of that, placate me with shallow propaganda, junk science and threats of censorship. Their motivations to me are cystal clear.

You have to look no further than the reincarnation of my one-dimensional psycho strawman.



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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Okay, I've read this thread, I read the previous thread. I've also spent 25 years in advertising, marketing communications, and related fields. I've written literally thousands of ads, I've gone on press checks, I've seen television production.

Forget the mumbo jumbo.

In 25 years, I have never seen an instance of subliminal advertising. (I'm not talking about the catalog incident that Cecil spoke of, which was traced back to an angry employee, I'm talking about the real deal.)

In an industry where we are quick to accuse our competition of everything from shady business practicies to outright crimes, I have never heard of anyone accused of trying subliminal advertising.

I have never even had a client ask if we could slip some subliminal stuff into an ad.

Furthermore, I've talked to advertising people who have been in the business longer than I have, and they agree -- it's a great urban legend, and nothing else.

If you want to believe in subliminal messages, it's okay with me. It just means you'll be looking at the ad more and more closely, inspecting every word, every photographic dot on the page, every curl of the typeface, every fluctuation in the density of the ink. You might even remember the ad the next time you go to the store. You might even be so influenced by what you've spent hours scrutinizing that you pick up a product without even considering its competitors.

And in the unforgettable words of Bartles and Jaymes, "thank you for your support."

As I have mentioned earlier I have read Subliminal Seduction in the early 1980's but in reality I had forgotten how
provocative and ground-shattering his ideas and hypotheses were. Hence my innocent entrance into this thread.
I really was expecting a debunking along the lines of "Yeah, it's there, but it can't be tested in a clinical situation", "it's a shot in the dark", "absolutely no noticable effect", etc. I have yet to see it. If these others who publicly state that they doubt the validity of Dr. Key's work really believe what they publicly pronounce, I sincerely doubt that they would invest as much time and energy as they have here in an attempt
to discredit him and on top of that, placate me with shallow propaganda, junk science and threats of censorship. Their motivations to me are cystal clear.

Please answer my questions. Stating that everyone is personally attacking you & Keys "so there must be something behind it" doesn't count as evidence of anything. Its true that people thought Galileo's ideas were crazy- but they also thought the same thing about Charles Manson's ideas too.

Mojo wrote:"Stating that everyone is personally attacking you & Key "so there must be something behind it" doesn't count as evidence of anything."

Thanks for restating the painfully obvious Mojo.

Oh but it does. Even junk science must of had the most banal and illogical of origins.

Perhaps there is something to be said for being able to think on your feet. I don't know.

Considering that personal attacks do nothing but keep this and any other dialog at an extremely superficial level, it is almost comical to see such behavior in a thread about subliminal advertising techniques, such as this.

Q.E.D.

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"Right is only half of what's wrong" - George Harrison - Old Brown Shoe -

Hey guys? There's a one-legged man in your ass-kicking contest.

This thread has degenerated into nothingness.
All the facts are in evidence, and I see no point in further eye-gouging. Thank you all for your spirited input.
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Nickrz
For The Straight Dope

Perhaps you could clarify a point for me, Dragonfly. Lets assume that images are being embedded "subliminally" into photos in advertisements. What effect will a skull in an ice cube or a skeletal Uncle Sam have on me as a consumer? What effect should they have? Why would a subliminal image in an ad be more effective than an overt one?

I know nothing of Dr. Keys as a person, only what I've read through your links. His assertions show no links between subliminal messages and buyer preference. Which (I assume) is the point that both he and you are trying to make.