Subliminal Perception, Neuropsychology, and the I-Function :: Biology Essays Research Papers

unconscious(p) Processing Subliminal Perception, Neuropsychology, and the I-FunctionIn his 1957 book The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard warned the American earth that Large-scale efforts are being made, often with impressive success, to channel our lumpen habits, our purchasing decisions, and our thought processes... Typically these efforts take place beneath our take aim of awareness so that the appeals which move us are often, in a sense, hidden (1). Packard was convinced - perhaps rightly so - that advertisers were professional persuaders whose merchandiseing techniques were deceptive and overly manipulative. Not only were advertisers becomingly increasingly brain at developing campaigns, pitches, and slogans to send specific messages to targeted consumer populations, but some had gone so far as to suggest that such messages could be in force(p) even if they were presented under the level of conscious awareness. James Vicary, one of the market researchers and entrepre neurs profiled in Packards book, claimed to have developed a machine capable of flash lamp such unnoticeable, unperceivable messages within big screen movies. Vicary had allegedly well-tried his technique by altering movies so that messages urging viewers to go through Popcorn and to Drink Coke were displayed at regular intervals throughout the involve for such brief durations that they could not be consciously perceived. Vicary claimed that his imperceptible messages resulted in a significant increase in sales of popcorn and snowfall (1). Although no experiment involving imperceptible messages has ever replicated the success which Vicary claimed to have achieved and, in f dissemble, Vicary later admitted that it had been no more than a marketing gimmick, the hatchway of subliminal or unconscious perception has not been dismissed. In fact, although the use of subliminal messages is generally considered a foolish and invalid practice, the more general phenomenon of sublimina l/unconscious perception deserves to be reevaluated in light of current debates environ the nature of consciousness. Subliminal or unconscious perception refers to the idea that stimuli presented below the threshold for conscious awareness can influence an individuals thoughts, feelings, or actions (2). The possibility that an individual can acquire and act on input without being aware of doing so has implications for the study of consciousness and the larger set of processes which stipulate the I-function. It is generally assumed that that conscious perception of a stimulus is obligatory in order to act on that stimulus, and this conscious decision to act is one of several processes which characterize the I-function.