Mind Hacks

Hack #82. Subliminal Messages Are Weak and Simple

Subliminal perception sneaks underneath the level of consciousness and can influence your preferences—but only a little.

Being exposed to a photograph for two-hundredth of a second can’t really be called seeing, because you won’t even be consciously aware of it. But having a photo flashed at you like this works it into your subliminal perception and means that next time you see it you’ll—very slightly, mind—prefer it to one you’ve never been exposed to before.

In Action

Proving that mere exposure can change your preferences isn’t easy to do at home, so it’s best to look at the experiments. Robert Bornstein and Paul D’Agostino exposed a group of volunteers to images, either photographs or unfamiliar shapes, and then asked each person to rate the images according to how much he or she liked them. ¹

If you were one of those volunteers, you’d have spent 5–10 minutes at the beginning of the experiment being exposed to images for only 5 milliseconds each. That’s a tiny amount of time for vision, only as long as a quarter of one frame of television. Exposed to a picture for that long, you’re not even aware you’ve seen it. As a volunteer, you could be shown the picture later to look at, and it’s as if you’re seeing it for the first time.

When you’re asked which images you prefer out of a larger selection, you’ll rate images you were exposed to but can’t recall seeing higher.

In Real Life

The rating exercise is a little like the game Hot or Not ...