Posted on

Subliminal

Beyond supraliminal presentations of symbols and tropes, however seductively disguised, professor Jane Caputi defines a subliminal advertisement as having “deliberately constructed split-level meanings”, replete with metaphor, and which have the effect of actively altering modern consciousness with new meanings “created by juxtaposition and synthesis”. She draws the analogy of using the fresh air and healthy, outdoor imagery of cigarette advertisements of the time, as “akin to the military using camouflage” (1987, p. 360). Designer and art historian Frank M. Young says “Camouflage could be called the art of visual deception… The best way for animals to stay alive is to look like what they are not or to convince their enemies they are not there” (1985, p. 44).

In a paper titled “The Power of the Subliminal: On Subliminal Persuasion and other Potential Applications” (2005), Dijksterhuis, Aarts, and Smith define subliminal stimulation scientifically as referring to stimuli that are presented such “that they cannot reach conscious awareness, even if attention is directed to them” (p. 8). Our senses can handle about 11 million bits of information input per second, and roughly 10 million of those bits are taken in by our visual system. To provide some context, only about 45 bits per second can be processed consciously as we read silently, while the remaining 9,999,955 are processed unconsciously (2005).

Despite the launching of mental representations, or priming, as being crucial for activating corresponding affective responses, including arousing emotions, it does not matter whether this priming occurs consciously or unconsciously. However, when the priming can be perceived, control strategies to counter its effect can be elicited that cannot otherwise be employed when these perceptions are made unconsciously. Importantly, unconscious priming from subliminal perception “can influence both social judgments and overt behavior” (2005, p. 15).

In a paper titled “The Effect of Subliminal Incentives on Goal-Directed Eye Movements” (November 10, 2021), Hinze, Uslu, Antono, Wilke, and Pooresmaeili observe that rapid side-to-side saccadic eye movements made while looking at a screen can be induced by subliminal reward stimulation which motivates subjects “to exert more effort” (November 10, 2021, p. 2014). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) “is a controversial form of psychotherapy in which the person being treated is asked to recall distressing images; the therapist then directs the patient in one type of bilateral stimulation, such as rapid side-to-side eye movement” (Wikipedia, retrieved December 2021). In a more recent paper titled “Inducing Amnesia for Unwanted Memories through Subliminal Reactivation” (November 28, 2021, preprint), Zhu, Anderson, and Wang propose that intentionally stopping memory retrieval through specific stimulation tasks that involve masking, suppresses hippocampal processing to induce an “amnesic shadow” within which traumatic events can be subliminally reactivated, then dissociated, and subsequently forgotten, without the subject having to be consciously re-exposed to them, as in EMDR. “Combining the amnesic shadow with subliminal reactivation may offer a new approach to forgetting trauma that bypasses the unpleasantness in conscious exposure to unwanted memories” (November 28, 2021, p. 8).

This research sounds promising. However, if such behaviour modification can be delivered or induced remotely where our screens and devices become modern tachistoscopes with dynamic subliminal capability, what are the implications of activating people in different ways, even en mass, without their informed consent? What other research is underway, perhaps involving subliminal auditory stimulation, or multi-modal stimulation, whose findings have not yet been published? How might the resulting affects be recognized and mitigated as subliminal stimulation occurs below the threshold of awareness? Are we not increasingly beholden to our mediated devices and virtual environments? What are we really giving permission for when we assent to the fine print while installing a new device, interface, or software application?

Are we headed towards techno-authoritarianism? Can technology become the leash and collar of societal control? Do we agree with Jane Caputi, in her referencing McLuhan’s more general notion of “technology made seductive” and the uses, virtuous and nefarious, to which it can be applied and unwittingly subscribed, “further signals the longed-for replacement of the elemental world by an indistinguishable, artificial substitute” (1987, p. 372) ?

A Sheaf of Golden Rules from Twelve Religions | Zoroastrianism:
“Him who is less than thee consider as an equal, and an equal as a superior, and a greater than him as a chieftain” (1946, p. 309).

Caputi, J. (1987), Seeing Elephants: The Myths of Phallotechnology, in Minton, A. J. & Shipka, T. A. (Eds.), Philosophy: Paradox and Discovery Third Edition (1990), (pp. 354 – 381). New York, United States: McGraw-Hill.

Dijksterhuis, A., Aarts, H., & Smith, P. K. (2005), The Power of the Subliminal: On Subliminal Persuasion and Other Potential Applications, in Hassin, R. Uleman, J. S., & Bargh, J. A. (Eds.), The New Unconscious, (preprint, pp. 1 – 51). New York, United States: Oxford University Press, [PDF document] retrieved December 2021 from http://j.b.legal.free.fr/Blog/share/M1/Biblio%20s%E9minaire%20M1/Subliminal%20perception%20final.pdf

Hinze, V. K., Uslu, O., Antono, J. E., Wilke, M., & Pooresmaeili, A. (November 10, 2021), The Effects of Subliminal Incentives on Goal-directed Eye Movements, in Journal of Neurophysiology; 126 (pp. 2014 – 2026), doi: 10.1152/jn.00414.2021 [PDF document] retrieved December 2021 from https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.00414.2021

Hoople, R. E., Piper, R. F., & Tolley, W. P. (Eds.), (1946), A Sheaf of Golden Rules from Twelve Religions in Preface to Philosophy: Book of Readings (pp. 309 – 310). New York, United States: The Macmillan Company (1952 ed.)

Young, F. M. (1985) Visual Studies: A Foundation for Artists and Designers. Englewood Cliffs, United States: Prentice – Hall Inc.

Zhu, Z., Anderson, M. C., & Wang, Y. (November 28, 2021), Inducing Amnesia for Unwanted Memories through Subliminal Reactivation, (preprint v 1.1, pp. 1 – 14), [PDF document] retrieved December 2021 from https://psyarxiv.com/rmvn9/

Posted on

Supraliminal

Philosopher of art Helen Huss Parkhurst observes our aspirational ideals are mirrored back in the sounds, symbols, and artifacts of popular culture which “we experience as a miraculous counterpart, visible or audible, of our very selves” (1930, p. 69). Carl Jung contemporary in the realm of art and symbol, psychologist Aniela Jaffé, suggests “that everything can assume symbolic significance… In fact, the whole cosmos is a potential symbol” (1964, p. 257).

In an essay titled “Seeing Elephants: The Myths of Phallotechnology” (1987), author and professor Jane Caputi takes a critical view of the images and symbols presented in popular culture, suggesting that in addition to what is delivered as product, entertainment, or idea, is often also accompanied by additional messages, both supraliminal and surreptitious, with the express intention of manipulating thought or behaviour.

Caputi sees one of the most mythic movies made, Star Wars, whose “patriarchal” tropes including lone female actress Carrie Fisher’s portrayal of Leia, the quintessential princess in distress, to be nothing less than a “gang-rape” in the cinematic sense, and whose intent is to reinforce such values (1987, p. 361). On a different level, she draws our attention to the film’s fortuitous, coincident and corresponding co-opting of its title by the United States Strategic Defence Initiative via popular culture. Now the U.S. can deliver a holy war from space to rival the narrative on the big screen:

“the movie Star Wars is fundamentally about nuclear war, its counterpart, “Star Wars” is fundamentally a fantasy, a political symbol produced for the purpose of manipulating emotions, perceptions, and behaviors. As one analyst observed, “The MX missile, whatever its military usefulness may be, is often seen as a weapon whose importance is largely symbolic, more a tool for manipulating perceptions, than for fulfilling a real military need” … and that its “actual meaning is to set new economic, military, and technological priorities” (1987, p. 364).

Author Wilson Bryan Key explores the surreptitious on an even more suggestive level in his book “Subliminal Seduction” (1973), where he sees various body parts “subliminally” implanted in many of the print advertising and editorial images of the time. Many of Key’s analyses of popular culture imagery, including the phalli and screaming skulls he has us see in the 1960’s and 70’s liquor advertisement ice-cubes of “Subliminal Seduction”, have been questioned. In his more recent book chapter essay “Subliminal Sexuality: The Fountainhead for America’s Obsession” (1999), his flawed analysis of the imagery in a Kanøn men’s cologne ad, perhaps primed by the product name, has a sliver of carved wood mistaken for a thumbnail, and thus its thumb for a phallus of “prodigious proportions” (1999, p. 200). His identifying these images, however apparent, including the “dead beagle with a chisel through its head” in the lower right corner of the same ad (1999, p. 201), suffer from being a posteriori ‘looks like …’ interpretations.

Although popular culture is rife with clever, cheeky, and coy advertising campaigns and images, sometimes bordering near the perceptually or suggestively liminal, as perhaps hinted in these three adverts from the August 1990 issue of British fashion and pop culture monthly “i-D Magazine”, should we approach the images and symbols we encounter nowadays with more skepticism and critical thought as to their intentions, however underlying?

Despite often overt, supraliminal presentation, insofar as the naughty bits are there if we look or have to analyze suggestively enough, Jane Caputi states these images are nonetheless intended to be perceived only subliminally: “Such messages are engineered so that they will be perceptible only to the subconscious mind. Thus, they bypass the critical faculty of the conscious, and the viewer is left unaware of even having received a message or suggestion”. She calls on adman and author Tony Schwartz who suggests such subconscious appeals are not simply subliminally seductive, as Key might want us to believe. Rather, Schwartz coined the concept “the resonance principle” to describe messages and symbols, however concocted by advertisers or perceived by audiences, as resonating in some effort to “evoke stored information out of them in a patterned way” (1987, p. 356).

Shall we agree with Caputi’s thesis and suspect plenty of surreptitious shenanigans, or take a different interpretation of her essay title in that the elephants of phallotechnology are themselves just myths in the non-existent sense of the word? Importantly, given logarithmic advances in technology coupled with knowledge of how our minds perceive and interpret, would it not make sense to consider the plethora of messages and symbols that we are now constantly bombarded with, some of which can be delivered in the truly scientifically subliminal sense, in ways that prime or shape our behaviour more broadly and perhaps even unbeknownst to us?

Caputi, J. (1987), Seeing Elephants: The Myths of Phallotechnology, in Minton, A. J. & Shipka, T. A. (Eds.), Philosophy: Paradox and Discovery Third Edition (1990), (pp. 354 – 381). New York, United States: McGraw-Hill.

Jaffé, A. (1964), Symbolism in the Visual Arts, in Jung, C. G. (Ed.), Man and His Symbols (pp. 255 – 322). New York, United States: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. (1983 ed.)

Jones, T. & Godfrey, T. (Eds.),(August 1990), i-D Magazine, Issue 83 (pp. 1 – 100). London, United Kingdom: Terry Jones & Tony Elliot.

Key, W. B. (1999), Subliminal Sexuality: The Fountainhead for America’s Obsession, in Lambiase, J. & Reichert, T. (Eds.), Sex in Advertising, chapter 11, (pp. 195 – 212). London, United Kingdom: Routledge. [PDF document] retrieved December 2021 from ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/50104/1/280.pdf#page=208

Parkhurst, H. H. (1930), Art as Man’s Image, in Hoople, R. E., Piper, R. F., & Tolley, W. P. (Eds.), (1946), Preface to Philosophy: Book of Readings (pp. 68 – 70). New York, United States: The Macmillan Company (1952 ed.)