you will read this post...

subliminal messages have been in the news quite a bit lately. must be all the star wars "force" hype unconsciously influencing media outlets...

according to a new study, consumers exposed to subliminal smiles poured and drank more of a beverage, with the reverse happening for frowns. those primed with happy faces also were willing to pay as much as triple what others were. most frightening, subjects were not aware of a change in their preferences.

in other recent news, researchers found a neurological mechanism for subliminal messages:

the visual cortex, the area of the brain tested in his experiments, has long been considered unchangeable in humans past 6 months of age. Watanabe found it could be "changed" and that the changes could last for a considerable period; individuals were tested again six months after the initial trials and show little or no deterioration....

scary, eh? but what is to be done? restricting subliminal advertising may be both prohibitively expensive and nearly impossible to determine and enforce, but subliminal tactics hardly seem ethical.

i guess the moral of the story is that eternal vigilance is the price of the free market, too, on more than one front. reducing access to advertising (via tv or magazines) and shopping with a list with prices and quantities are ways we can proactively reduce the influence of subliminal advertising. in addition, watchdogs can expose subliminal techniques to the press therefore making them less effective, and perhaps shame companies from using them.

Labels: neuroscience