Encefalus

What do you really know about your subconscious mind?

Subliminal Learning Demonstrated In Human Brain

The above link is from Science Daily. It reports of the findings of this paper Subliminal Instrumental Conditioning Demonstrated in the Human Brain published in Neuron magazine. 

Although the idea that instrumental learning can occur subconsciously has been around for nearly a century, it had not been unequivocally demonstrated. Now, a new study published by Cell Press in the August 28 issue of the journal Neuron used sophisticated perceptual masking, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to show that instrumental learning can occur in the human brain without conscious processing of contextual cues.

The readers of Encefalus already know that the subconscious can hold great power over our actions and thoughts. We have the mighty The cookie effect. We also have the perception of sexual orientation at 50 ms Homosexuality, evolutionary psychology and cognition, and the dangers of lotteries (Lotteries, poverty and social implications).

Of course, through the years there has been great speculation over the range of this effect. For example we’ve all heard of subliminal advertising. However, the results were mostly negative, concerning the effectiveness of this technique. This research here, however, can steer some thoughts, as to the possibility that subliminal messaging might work, as long as there are clear rewards and punishments.

Subliminal advertising…

"Humans frequently invoke an argument that their intuition can result in a better decision than conscious reasoning," says lead author Dr. Mathias Pessiglione from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at the University College London. "Such assertions may rely on subconscious associative learning between subliminal signals present in a given situation and choice outcomes." For instance, a seasoned poker player may play more successfully because of a learned association between monetary outcomes and subliminal behavioral manifestations of their opponents.

To investigate this phenomenon, Dr. Pessiglione and colleagues created visual cues from scrambled, novel, abstract symbols. Visual awareness was assessed by displaying two of the masked cues and asking subjects if they perceived any difference. "We reasoned that if subjects were unable to correctly perceive any difference between the masked cues, then they were also unable to build conscious representations of cue-outcome associations," explains Dr. Pessiglione.

In the next set of experiments, subjects performed a subliminal conditioning task that employed the same masking procedure, but the cues were now paired with monetary outcomes. Using this methodology, the researchers observed that pairing rewards and punishments guided behavioral responses and even conditioned preferences for abstract cues that subjects could not consciously see.

It guides your actions…

Searching for this post, I also found this: Neuromarketing-Subliminal Messages Work!. I could not enter in the designated link, but I found it on: New Scientist-Subliminal advertising may work after all.

The researchers asked 61 volunteers to perform a nonsense task – counting how many times a string of capital Bs was infiltrated by a lower-case b as they flashed up on a screen. The B strings appeared for 300 milliseconds each, and before them, a string of Xs always appeared, flanking a 23-millisecond subliminal message. For the experimental group, the message was "Lipton Ice". Controls saw "Nipeic Tol".

When the volunteers had completed this task, they were asked to choose between Lipton Ice and Spa Rood by clicking one of two keys – though they were told this was part of a separate study. They were also asked how likely they would be to order either of these drinks if they were sitting on a terrace, and to rate how thirsty they were. Volunteers who rated themselves as thirsty were more likely to choose Lipton Ice, but only if they had received the subliminal message.

In a second study the researchers made half of their 105 volunteers thirsty by giving them a very salty candy before the task. As predicted, among the thirsty, subliminal messaging had an impact. Eighty per cent of thirsty volunteers who had been exposed to the Lipton Ice message chose that product, compared to only 20 per cent of the controls.

The thirstier volunteers rated themselves to be, the more likely they were to choose Lipton Ice. Those who were not thirsty were only slightly more likely to pick the iced tea (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2005.12.2005). "Priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant," says Karremans. The researchers are now planning to study just how long-lasting these effects are.

Subliminal messaging…

So, did you see? "Priming only works when the prime is goal-relevant". Relevant like money perhaps! As it seems, the brain can be influenced by subliminal messages when they are important. However, while money can be considered generally important, as we are all conditioned from a small age to money. The subliminal messaging in the case of Lipton Ice Tea, however, is a little different, since ice tea cannot be deemed as important as money, even though the research showed results Perhaps the subjects were previously conditioned through TV advertising.

However the subjects also need to have the cognitive resources to engage in the analysis of subliminal messages as this research shows: Subliminal images impact on brain (paper on Science Direct: Attentional Load Modulates Responses of Human Primary Visual Cortex to Invisible Stimuli. Being occupied prevents the brain from catching subliminal messages, challenging the theory of the pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, William James, (1842–1910), who said: “We are conscious of what we attend to – and not conscious of what we do not attend to”.

Dude, you’re wrong…

In the first research, the researchers also performed an fMRI 

The researchers collected scans of the brain, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, to investigate the specific brain circuitry that is linked to subliminal instrumental conditioning. "The ventral striatum responded to subliminal cues and to visible outcomes in a manner that closely approximates our computational algorithm, expressing reward expected values and prediction errors," says Dr. Pessiglione. "We conclude that, even without conscious processing of contextual cues, our brain can learn their reward value and use them to provide a bias on decision making."

To add some further comments on this article, I have to speak from my personal experience on subconscious learning. Years ago, when I was still in high school, I had the habit to return from school and play chess with Chessmaster. Because I was getting up early for school and we had lessons for 5 hours, I was very tired, and after the first ten minutes I could no longer think. However, I noticed that I was slowly getting better. While at the beginning I was usually losing, after some games, I was good enough to actually get close to victory.

He’s getting into your subconscious…

So, I got better in an activity that obviously requires thought, without thinking! This surely ought to steer some thoughts!

Now doing some further research on the subjects I found only 7 articles on Science Direct on "subliminal advertising"! The keywords "subliminal messaging" return nothing, while "subliminal learning" returns 27. "Subliminal" alone returns 468 articles. I certainly hoped there was more stuff on the subject of subliminal advertising and learning, so I can search the subject a little more, especially on subliminal learning, which could, perhaps, be used in a brain training context.

Of course, all these we’ve talked through today can have important political or social effects. Take a look at this where it is reported that the Republicans might have used subliminal advertising against Obama: Subliminal Messaging, or Over-Active Imaginations? Furthermore, the second study I mentioned in New Scientist also reports

Meanwhile, advertisers have found alternative means of pushing their products. Earlier this month, the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine published a report showing that for each additional hour per day that a child watched television an average of one additional request was made for an advertised product. The effect of the commercials on children lasted 

Of course, not knowing whether subliminal messaging really works, has not stopped various internted frauds promising a better and more productive life through subliminal learning, nor it has prevented large companies from utilising subliminal advertising, as this video clearly shows (if you can’t play the video click the link beneath it)

Link: www.youtube.com

So, as you can see the subconscious is something that cannot be taken lightly . Just watch around for anyone trying to get into your mind through subliminal messaging, and just call Encefalus to provide you with the latest information on subliminal warfare

Further Reading:

Subliminal Advertising

Proof that Subliminal Advertising Works (a pretty freaky, but excellent video from a TV show)

Scary, Subliminal Advertising And Why It Works 

Subliminal Advertising – BUY BUY BUY!

Subliminal advertising in spam?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Cognitive, Economics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.