Subliminal Messages in Pictures – Do Subliminal Messages in Pictures Influence our Decisions?

It is believed that when a person is continuously and quickly shown a subliminal message hidden behind a picture, even after the image is gone our subconscious maintains an after image of the message and subconscious then acts in a similar way as the subliminal message in the picture suggests. Some also believes that subliminal messages in pictures can also have a positive effect for example it can also help to achieve a goal i.e. if you repeatedly look at a at your goal hidden as a subliminal message in a visual your subconscious will let go of self-beliefs and replace it with your goal.

A subliminal message is a message hidden in audio or visual. It is not detectable easily to our naked eyes. These messages directly influence our sub consciousness and may lead our sub consciousness in a certain direction. Some researches argue that effect of subliminal messages is rather insignificant while others believe that they might cause some harm. Another third group of researches believe that subliminal messages have no effect on our subconscious thus no effect on our actions.

Subliminal messages are commonly used in pictures. Subliminal messages hidden in pictures are part normally used as part of advertising campaigns with sellers believing that subliminal messages hidden in pictures with increase their product sell.

The popcorn sale during a movie in a theater is probably the most well known of all of the subliminal messages that have been hidden in pictures. In 1950, a market researcher named James Vicary used subliminal messages in pictures by flashing images ‘eat popcorn’ and ‘drink coke’ quickly on the screen. He claimed that the percentage sale of popcorn was increased by about 17% and that Coke sales went up by 63%.

Wilson Bryan Key, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, conducted his research particularly in subliminal messages in pictures. He discovered that subliminal messages were used almost in all advertisements. For example, Wilson Bryan Key found that in the Johnny Walker Scotch ads the ice cubes had images of screaming faces, skulls, and other horrific images. Other products in which subliminal messages have been used are beer products like Labatt’s, tobacco products, alcohol products, food products, pharmaceutical products and sports equipment and even in drinks such as coke.

Another interesting example of subliminal messages in picture is dated back to year 1988 when a subliminal picture of French president before his re-election was mixed with the title sequence of French national television daily news show for several consecutive days.

In a recent case a McDonald’s logo appeared at one point during Food Network’s series Iron Chef America. It lead to many claims that it was an instance of subliminal messages in pictures although Food Network claimed otherwise.

Some research were carried out to prove that subliminal messages hidden in pictures have no influence on a person. For example In year 1970 D. Hawkins, a scientists, discovered that after showing the word “Coke” hidden subliminally in a picture particularly in an advertisement to a group of people, their desire to buy coke was not greater than group of people who had been shown a word which meant nothing to them.

Do subliminal messages in pictures exist? There has been no proof as yet that subliminal messages in pictures influences ones action compared to others strongly claiming that subliminal messages have no effect. While the jury is still out on whether subliminal messages are a scientific fact, many individuals have found that beneficial subliminal messages hidden in specially designed videos and movies have helped them to quit smoking, lose weight and conquer bad habits. Hopefully, more scientific studies will be done and we can have a conclusive answer.

write by Athelstan