Wednesday, May 13, 2009

subliminal advertising

"A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind's perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, belief systems and value systems. The term subliminal means 'beneath a limen'" (retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message).

Subliminal messages influence our brain in a fraction of second and work on a subconscious level. As a matter of fact, they attract the brain's attention using invisible images and sounds hidden in anything you're reading or watching. The result of a study conducted by University College London (UCL) on subliminal messages shows that subliminal messages or images reach the retina and have "an impact on brain activity in the primary visual cortex, part of the occipital lobe". The wider implication for the study is that the "techniques such as subliminal advertising, now banned in the UK but still legal in the USA, certainly do leave their mark on the brain" (retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/media/library/notaware).

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