Subliminal Influence

Overview

Objectives/Goals Advertisers have used subliminal messages for years to try to influence people into buying products. In a video, the images flash by so fast that you are not consciously aware of them. However, it is said that your subconscious mind picks up these messages and that they can make you want to buy a product. I tried to find out if video subliminal messages actually work the way they are said to. Methods/Materials I showed each test subject a video of my dog, with or without a subliminal message. The subliminal message was a triangle that flashed by at one 100th of a second, the shortest time possible with the video-editing software I had. After watching the video, I asked the person to choose between four shapes: a triangle, a square, a circle, and an octagon. I showed sixteen people the video with the subliminal message in it, and sixteen other people the exact same video but without the subliminal message. Results Eight out of the sixteen people that saw the movie with the subliminal message picked the triangle; that's 50%. Only four out of sixteen, or 25% of the control group picked the triangle. Of the remaining people who did not pick the triangle, half of both groups picked the circle and the other half was evenly divided between the square and the octagon. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, my project showed that a subliminal message can actually influence a person's decisions. Twice as many people who had subliminally seen the triangle than those who had not seen it picked that shape over the other shapes.

Competition history

• CSEF 2006 Behavioral Sciences · Entry J0318

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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