Subliminally Research Articles

“The Battle for Men’s Minds”: Subliminal Message as Conspiracy Theory in Seventh-Day Adventist Discourse

“The Battle for Men’s Minds”: Subliminal Message as Conspiracy Theory in Seventh-Day Adventist Discourse

Enhanced intentional inhibition with increased subliminal action preparation.

Intentional inhibition, the ability to voluntarily inhibit or suspend an action preparation, is closely related to self-control. It is widely believed that subliminal stimuli can also activate action preparation, but whether intentional inhibition is enhanced or disrupted with greater subliminal action preparation remains unclear. In this study, participants voluntarily decided whether or not to perform the action in the scenario with subliminal action preparation, and the strength of the action preparation was manipulated by a precueing procedure. The results, based on behavioural measures and drift-diffusion models, showed that intentional inhibition enhanced with increasing subliminal action preparation, suggesting that as subliminal action preparation increases, people are more inclined to make inhibitory decisions. This study provides evidence for a framework in which strong subliminal action preparation induces enhanced cognitive monitoring.

The identity of religion always comes up: the war, the mass media and the reproduction of Muslim identity in the west

Islamophobia in the media occurs when media sources present hostile, inaccurate, and/or deceptive stories about Islam, Muslims, or Arabs. Islamophobia is the term used to describe strong antipathy or prejudice toward Muslims, intense hatred or fear of Islam, particularly as a political force, and the study of how and to what extent the media promotes There has been a lot of scholarly and political discourse on Islamophobia. The discourse around Islamophobia in the media often focuses on the rhetorical strategies utilized by individual media outlets or by the mass media of a given nation or region, such the US or Europe. A few instances of this are when Islam is portrayed in a poor light relative to other religions, when Muslims are linked to terrorism, when Muslims and their followers are portrayed as aggressive or primitive, and when Muslim viewpoints are excluded from discussions on politics and academia, among other subjects. On the other hand, reactions to talks about Islamophobia in the media frequently cast doubt on what actually qualifies as Islamophobia, how frequently, how severe, and how effective Islamophobic language is, as well as the political reasons for such talks. This study aims to determine whether or not there was obvious inherent bias by examining the tone, structure, and topics offered by the print media prior to a terrorist event. This study examines how the world press has connected Islam to terrorism and emphasizes how subliminal print messages might contribute to Muslim racial profiling and the spread of Islamophobia. The editorials of six prominent international newspapers between 2014 and 2017 provided the data for this study, which created strata of ten significant worldwide terrorism incidents at random. The investigator examined editorials for a month following the event. The researcher’s results and conclusions are obtained by statistical interpretation following data analysis using event methodology and content analysis.

Minimal exposure durations reveal visual processing priorities for different stimulus attributes

Human vision can detect a single photon, but the minimal exposure required to extract meaning from stimulation remains unknown. This requirement cannot be characterised by stimulus energy, because the system is differentially sensitive to attributes defined by configuration rather than physical amplitude. Determining minimal exposure durations required for processing various stimulus attributes can thus reveal the system’s priorities. Using a tachistoscope enabling arbitrarily brief displays, we establish minimal durations for processing human faces, a stimulus category whose perception is associated with several well-characterised behavioural and neural markers. Neural and psychophysical measures show a sequence of distinct minimal exposures for stimulation detection, object-level detection, face-specific processing, and emotion-specific processing. Resolving ongoing debates, face orientation affects minimal exposure but emotional expression does not. Awareness emerges with detection, showing no evidence of subliminal perception. These findings inform theories of visual processing and awareness, elucidating the information to which the visual system is attuned.

Exploring the Intersection of Subliminal Perception and Digital Marketing

Abstract: Subliminal refers to stimuli that operate below the threshold of conscious perception. Subliminal advertisements target the subconscious, where consumers may not consciously assess the content. However, their impact becomes apparent through indirect observations, such as the influence on emotions, the effect on cognitive processes, the ability of consumers to consciously evaluate these ads, the level of excitement and engagement with characters portrayed in subliminal ads, and various other aspects. This research delves into the intersection of subliminal perception and digital marketing, seeking to unravel the subtle influences that impact consumer behaviour in the digital realm. By employing a comprehensive methodology that includes surveys, content analysis, and hypothesis testing, the study aims to explore how individuals perceive and respond to subliminal cues embedded in digital marketing content. Ethical considerations guide the research process to ensure transparency and consumer well-being. A sample size of 126 participants, encompassing both male and female youths aged 18-30, was selected from diverse professional and non-professional backgrounds. The findings contribute valuable insights into the complex interplay between subliminal perception and digital marketing strategies, offering implications for marketers aiming to enhance user engagement, brand perception, and overall effectiveness in the online landscape.

The Right to Mental Autonomy

A number of moral philosophers and legal scholars have now recognized that we possess a natural, or moral, right to mental autonomy. This right is standardly characterized as our right against significant, nonconsensual interference with our minds. However, the precise scope of this right remains under-theorized: what makes some ways of influencing someone’s thinking—rational argumentation, say—permissible, but other ways—pharmacological manipulation—impermissible? Here I argue that the right to mental autonomy should be analyzed as the right to form attitudes in light of reasons. Once understood this way, we can see how this right protects us against all “nonrational” interventions on our thinking—including, but not limited to, nonconsensual neurosurgery, pharmacological manipulations, science fiction mind control, subliminal messaging, and non-reason-giving advertising or nudging. Rather, the only fully permissible ways to seek to influence someone’s thinking are through methods that seek to engage their rational faculties. This result, I claim, accords with our moral intuitions concerning the matter.

Employing Subliminal Messages, in Social Marketing Ads for Changing Concepts in the Egyptian Society

Employing Subliminal Messages, in Social Marketing Ads for Changing Concepts in the Egyptian Society

Prime-induced illusion of control: The influence of unconscious priming on self-initiated actions and the role of regression to the mean

To what degree human cognition is influenced by subliminal stimuli is a controversial empirical question. One striking example was reported by Linser and Goschke (2007): participants overestimated how much control they had over objectively uncontrollable stimuli when masked congruent primes were presented immediately before the action. Critically, however, unawareness of the masked primes was established by post hoc data selection. In our preregistered study we sought to explore these findings while adjusting prime visibility based on individual thresholds, so that each participant underwent both visible and non-visible conditions. In experiment 1, N = 39 participants engaged in a control judgement task: following the presentation of a semantic prime, they freely selected between two keys, which triggered the appearance of a colored circle. The color of the circles, however, was independent of the key-press. Subsequently, participants assessed their perceived control over the circle’s color, based on their key-presses, via a rating scale that ranged from 0 % (no control) to 100 % (complete control). Contrary to Linser and Goschke (2007)'s findings, this experiment demonstrated that predictive information influenced the experience of agency only when primes were consciously processed. In experiment 2, utilizing symbolic (arrow) primes, N = 35 participants had to rate their feeling of control over the effect-stimulus’ identity during a two-choice identification paradigm (i.e., they were instructed to press a key corresponding to a target stimulus; with a contingency between target and effect stimulus of 75 %/25 %). The results revealed no significant influence of subliminal priming on agency perceptions. In summary, this study implies that unconscious stimuli may not exert a substantial influence on the conscious experience of agency, underscoring the need for careful consideration of methodological aspects and experimental design's impact on observed phenomena.

Unconscious Integration of Categorical Relationship of Two Subliminal Numbers in Comparison with "5".

Many studies have shown that the brain can process subliminal numerals, i.e., participants can categorize a subliminal number into two categories: greater than 5 or less than 5. In the context of many studies on the unconscious integration of multiple subliminal stimuli, the issue of whether multiple subliminal numbers can be integrated is contentious. The same-different task is regarded as a perfect tool to explore unconscious integration. In the two experiments reported, we used a same-different task in which a pair of masked prime numbers was followed by a pair of target numbers, and participants were asked to decide whether the two target numbers were on the same (both smaller or larger than 5) or different sides (one smaller, the other larger than 5) of 5 in magnitude. The results indicated that the prime numbers could be categorized unconsciously, which was reflected by the category priming effect, and that the unconscious category relationship of the two prime numbers could affect the judgment on the category relationship of the two target numbers, as reflected by the response priming effect. The duration of the prime-to-target interstimulus interval (ISI) was also manipulated, showing a positive compatibility effect (PCE) of category priming and a negative compatibility effect (NCE) of response priming no matter whether the ISI was short (50 ms) or long (150 ms). The NCE, which occurred when the prime-to-target ISI was relatively short in this study, contradicted the conventional view but was consistent with previous results of unconscious integration based on an attention modulation mechanism. Importantly, this study provided evidence for the still-under-debate issue of numerical information integration.

Unconscious multisensory integration: behavioral and neural evidence from subliminal stimuli.

The prevailing theories of consciousness consider the integration of different sensory stimuli as a key component for this phenomenon to rise on the brain level. Despite many theories and models have been proposed for multisensory integration between supraliminal stimuli (e.g., the optimal integration model), we do not know if multisensory integration occurs also for subliminal stimuli and what psychophysical mechanisms it follows. To investigate this, subjects were exposed to visual (Virtual Reality) and/or haptic stimuli (Electro-Cutaneous Stimulation) above or below their perceptual threshold. They had to discriminate, in a two-Alternative Forced Choice Task, the intensity of unimodal and/or bimodal stimuli. They were then asked to discriminate the sensory modality while recording their EEG responses. We found evidence of multisensory integration for supraliminal condition, following the classical optimal model. Importantly, even for subliminal trials participant's performances in the bimodal condition were significantly more accurate when discriminating the intensity of the stimulation. Moreover, significant differences emerged between unimodal and bimodal activity templates in parieto-temporal areas known for their integrative role. These converging evidences - even if preliminary and needing confirmation from the collection of further data - suggest that subliminal multimodal stimuli can be integrated, thus filling a meaningful gap in the debate about the relationship between consciousness and multisensory integration.

Social and religious dimensions of anxious consumption

Individuals exposed to a growing number of visual, auditory, and subliminal messages daily are increasingly susceptible to adopting various behaviors, either voluntarily or unintentionally. Much of this behavior manifests in everyday life, often unconsciously or as a direct outcome of deliberate actions. Across daily life, people demonstrate diverse consumer behaviors driven by a range of both intrinsic needs and externally constructed demands—ranging from food and clothing to technology, addictive substances, cosmetics, and even self-consumption. These complex and multidimensional states of consumption can be better understood and explained by examining the underlying factors that compel individuals to consume. This study employs resource analysis methods to investigate the interplay between anxiety and consumption behavior, focusing on how perceptions of imminent danger and threat contribute to a cycle of consumption driven by worry and anxiety. Additionally, this article explores the religious dimensions of unsettling consumption practices, offering a nuanced perspective on the psychological and cultural influences that shape contemporary consumer behavior

Blue without my Green: A Corpus Analysis on Colours of Grief and Emotive Expressions of Amy Winehouse’s Compositions

Singers and songwriters use their music as a platform for communication, using lyrics to express intimate sentiments - often caused by the pressures of the music industry as well as personal matters such as mental health. In this study, we analysed Amy Winehouse’s songs, exploring the explicit and subliminal affective messages using linguistic techniques i.e., metaphors and colour symbolism. Grounded on corpus analysis and stages of grief theory, we looked at linguistic patterns and intensity of word choice related to Amy’s choices of colours and emotive expressions. The findings show that sadness was the most prevalent emotion in her lyrics and its correlation to her mental health issues; the transition of positive sentiments developing into negative emotions was also evident in the data. Her complex relationships and experiences were also infused into her deliberate self-portrayal of catalytic mental deterioration, self-destruction, and torment. This study offers new insights in corpus analysis research on psycholinguistics and mental health in pop culture.

THE EFFECTS OF SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES ON HUMAN ATTITUDE CHANGE AND EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING

This discussion delves into the intricate realms of self-awareness and unconsciousness, shedding light on their profound influence on human behavior and society. Awareness, spanning from the womb to the grave, defines our conscious existence, while the unconscious silently records every sensory input, guiding our emotions and actions. Notably, the unconscious can be harnessed to manipulate individuals and communities through subliminal messages, a powerful tool wielded by advertising, marketing, and media. The infamous 1957 experiment by James Vicary, flashing Eat Popcorn! Drink Coca-Cola! in a cinema, exemplifies how subtle suggestions can shape consumer choices. Visual symbols in advertising can evoke feelings of credibility in consumers, perpetuating the allure of certain products or services. However, its essential to be cautious, especially regarding children and their exposure to digital games, which may harbor hidden subliminal messages impacting their future behavior. The study underscores the sway of subliminal messages in advertising, ideology propagation, and economic interests. Nevertheless, the impact varies with age, gender, culture, and time, aligning with individual desires and beliefs. Negative usage of subliminal messages, when they are forced upon consumers, becomes detrimental to individuals and society. Therefore, comprehensive control measures and penalties for subliminal advertising are imperative. Particularly, vigilance is required in monitoring childrens media consumption to shield them from harmful messages.In conclusion, subliminal messages hold immense potential for both harm and benefit. While they can be tools for manipulation, they can also aid personal growth and societal harmony. Striking a balance requires vigilance, regulation, and ethical considerations, ensuring that subliminal messages serve as a force for positive change rather than manipulation.

Unconscious Manipulation of Conceptual Representations with Decoded Neurofeedback Impacts Search Behavior.

The necessity of conscious awareness in human learning has been a long-standing topic in psychology and neuroscience. Previous research on non-conscious associative learning is limited by the low signal-to-noise ratio of the subliminal stimulus, and the evidence remains controversial, including failures to replicate. Using functional MRI decoded neurofeedback, we guided participants from both sexes to generate neural patterns akin to those observed when visually perceiving real-world entities (e.g., dogs). Importantly, participants remained unaware of the actual content represented by these patterns. We utilized an associative DecNef approach to imbue perceptual meaning (e.g., dogs) into Japanese hiragana characters that held no inherent meaning for our participants, bypassing a conscious link between the characters and the dogs concept. Despite their lack of awareness regarding the neurofeedback objective, participants successfully learned to activate the target perceptual representations in the bilateral fusiform. The behavioral significance of our training was evaluated in a visual search task. DecNef and control participants searched for dogs or scissors targets that were pre-cued by the hiragana used during DecNef training or by a control hiragana. The DecNef hiragana did not prime search for its associated target but, strikingly, participants were impaired at searching for the targeted perceptual category. Hence, conscious awareness may function to support higher-order associative learning. Meanwhile, lower-level forms of re-learning, modification, or plasticity in existing neural representations can occur unconsciously, with behavioral consequences outside the original training context. The work also provides an account of DecNef effects in terms of neural representational drift.

Low-Frequency Oscillations for Nonlocal Neuronal Coupling in Shared Intentionality Before and After Birth: Toward the Origin of Perception

The theoretical study observes literature to understand whether or not low-frequency oscillations can simultaneously alter the excitability of neurons from peripheral nervous subsystems in different individuals to provide Shared Intentionality in recipients (e.g., fetuses and newborns) and what are the attributes of ecological context for Shared Intentionality. To grasp the perception of objects during environmental learning at the onset of cognition, a fetus needs exogenous factors that could stimulate her nervous system to choose the relevant sensory stimulus. Low-frequency brain oscillations can cause the nonlocal coupling of neurons in peripheral and central nervous subsystems that provide subliminal perception. An external low-frequency oscillator and the proximity of individuals can stimulate the coordination of their heart rates and modulate neuronal excitability. External low-frequency oscillations can increase the cognitive performance of the subjects. The characteristics of this pulsed low-frequency field are oscillations with 400 and 700 nm wavelengths alternately with the pulsed frequency ranging from 1 to 1.6 Hz. This theoretical work contributes to knowledge about nonlocal neuronal coupling in different organisms that can appear due to low-frequency oscillations. The significance of the article is that it explains the neurophysiological processes occurring during Shared Intentionality - one of the central issues in understanding the cognitive development of young children, as the conventional view in cognitive sciences argues. The article's impact is a proposal of the universal mechanism of nonlocal neuronal coupling in shaping the embryonal nervous system in animals of all species, which opens new directions for research on the origin of perception of objects.

Screen Sustenance: Representations of Food and Drink in Film and Media

Abstract This ten-minute video essay will blend together a range of clips from classic and contemporary films (documentary and fiction), as well as television, social media and computer gaming, to consider how food and drink is represented on screen. From early subliminal messaging in movie theatres to “drink Coca Cola” (a practice now illegal) to the modern social status of the ‘viral’ energy/hydration drink, Prime, promoted by YouTubers, food and drink has had a significant relationship upon a range of screen media. In computer gaming it is often synonymous with restoring an avatar's health, while in film and popular programming it can offer a gustatory sensation to viewers through a process of synaesthesia as taste is conveyed through sound and vision. The video essay will consider all of these angles, showcasing the palatable as well as the unsavoury through a range of examples which includes films such as Peter Strickland's Flux Gourmet (2022), Morgan Spurlock's Super-Size Me (2004) and Andrea Arnold's Cow (2021).Fusing a range of gaming, television and social media ingredients together, the video essay is served to help think about the role food and drinks has, and continues to play, within film and screen culture.

Subliminal perception of others’ physical pain induces personal distress rather than empathic concern

BackgroundWhat is our immediate reaction when we witness someone experiencing pain? The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that observers would display empathy and a tendency to approach the person in pain. Alternatively, the threat value of pain hypothesis (TVPH) argues that others' pain serves as a signal of threat and should induce observers’ avoidance response.MethodsTo examine these two hypotheses, three experiments were conducted. The experiments aimed to investigate the impact of subliminal exposure to others' physical pain on participants' emotional and behavioural responses.ResultsThe results revealed that subliminal pain priming resulted in faster response and attentional bias to fearful faces compared to sad faces (Experiment 1), faster reaction times in recognizing fear-related words compared to anger-related words during a lexical decision task (Experiment 2), and faster avoidance responses towards anger-related words, as opposed to approaching responses towards positive words (Experiment 3).ConclusionsThe consistent findings across all experiments revealed that subliminal perception of pain scenes elicited fear emotion and immediate avoidance responses. Therefore, the outcomes of our study provide supportive evidence for the TVPH.

The Unconscious Tug-of-War: Exploring the Effect of Stimulus Selection Bias on Creative Problem Solving with Multiple Unconscious Stimuli.

This study innovatively investigated the potential selection bias involved in processing multiple subliminal stimuli during creative problem-solving (CPS). It addresses the existing gap in specialized research on how the handling of multiple unconscious stimuli influences higher-order cognitive processes, particularly creativity. The study utilized a masked priming paradigm and a remote association task (RAT). Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 presented two stimuli simultaneously, with one being the correct answer, to examine whether there was a bias in the location of subliminal stimuli. In Experiment 2, two stimuli were presented sequentially, with one serving as the answer, to investigate whether there was a temporal bias in unconscious processing. Our findings revealed that when solving easy RATs, subliminal stimuli presented on the left side had a negative priming effect compared to the right side. The results revealed that unconscious processing of subliminal stimuli enhanced performance on difficult CPS. Additionally, a temporal bias was observed, with more recent subliminal stimuli having a stronger effect than earlier stimuli. Unconscious processing can improve CPS, especially for difficult tasks, and there is a bias towards processing stimuli on the left and more recently presented stimuli. These findings contribute to our understanding of unconscious processing, particularly the processing of multiple subliminal stimuli in CPS, and provide insights into the biases that exist in unconscious processing.

Should You Put an Emoticon on Your Flag? How Subliminal Visual Stimuli Can Change Political Opinions

Abstract Political objects, like national flags, arouse emotions even when they are subliminal stimuli. Through two experiments that show subliminal stimuli to the subjects, this article analyzes if those emotions are positive or negative ones—that is to say, if they enhance an inclusive reaction or an excluding one. Besides, the article compares the intensity of the flag’s emotional effect with that of the emoticons, which are figures intended to represent emotional reactions or states. Findings confirm that the Spanish flag, as a subliminal stimulus, influences the opinions of the participants. However, it has had a lower effect than that obtained in previous, similar experiments. Emoticons produce a much more intense type of response than flags. The experiments (n = 85; n = 126) enlarge the knowledge about the emotional effects of political objects of nonconscious perception. Besides, we present an original methodological contribution: the use of emoticons to alter political views.

Implicit bias training can remove bias from subliminal stimuli, restoring choice divergence: A proof-of-concept study.

Subliminal information can influence our conscious life. Subliminal stimuli can influence cognitive tasks, while endogenous subliminal neural information can sway decisions before volition. Are decisions inextricably biased towards subliminal information? Or can they diverge away from subliminal biases via training? We report that implicit bias training can remove biases from subliminal sensory primes. We first show that subliminal stimuli biased an imagery-content decision task. Participants (n = 17) had to choose one of two different patterns to subsequently imagine. Subliminal primes significantly biased decisions towards imagining the primed option. Then, we trained participants (n = 7) to choose the non-primed option, via post choice feedback. This training was successful despite participants being unaware of the purpose or structure of the reward schedule. This implicit bias training persisted up to one week later. Our proof-of-concept study indicates that decisions might not always have to be biased towards non-conscious information, but instead can diverge from subliminal primes through training.