Subliminal Recording Essay Example

Subliminal Recording Essay This essay is about the use of subliminal voice messages to improve the work of the employees in a company. The subliminal voice messages are the ultrasound voice messages, which cannot be heard, but are understood by the brain. It is believed now, that these can improve the efficiency, productivity, loyalty and enthusiasm of work place employees. The following paper is an attempt to prove this fact. Subliminal Recording Background: For the first time, the subliminal messages came into notice, when E. W. Scripture described the basic principles of the subliminal messages, in his book ‘The New Psychology’, published in 1898. Then, in 1900, an American professor of psychology, Knight Dunlap practically experienced it by flashing a shadow to the students while showing them an illusion, containing two lines, with the pointed arrows at both the ends, thus giving an impression of different lengths. He believed that this shadow had influenced his students subliminally in the perception of the lengths of the lines. The subliminal recording first got attention shortly after the discovery by Freud that all human beings possess a hidden, unconscious mind. Following this discovery, another scientist, named Dr. O. Poetzle, started research on the effect of subliminal stimulation on dream content. His efforts resulted in his discovery about a close relationship between the subliminal stimuli and the posthypnotic suggestion, in 1917. This discovery was named after him, as ‘The Poetzle Effect’. This effect shows that the subliminal perception of mind, shows its effect by evoking the dreams, or actions sometime after the original perception of mind occurred. We will write a custom essay sample on Subliminal Recording specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Subliminal Recording specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Subliminal Recording specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Following these two successful discoveries, this field gathered more attention, and a lot Subliminal Recording 3 more efforts were made in an attempt to understand this phenomenon in a better way. All the research done in this field, has proved that the subliminal perception does have an influence on the unconscious or the subconscious mind. It has been proved that it is even helpful in changing the behavior of people. Effects of Subliminal Recording on Various Fields of Life Discussed below are the different aspects of life, where a proven effect of subliminal recordings have been showed. Public Awareness: The subliminal perception for the public awareness first took place in 1957, as an controversial experiment conducted by the market researcher James Victory in a Fort Lee, New Jersey, movie theatre. The subliminal messages used in this experiment were: â€Å"Hungry? Eat popcorn. Thirsty? Drink Coca-Cola. † These messages were flashed only for a fraction of a second, for every five seconds, during the show of movie named ‘Picnic. ’ It resulted in a dramatic increase in the sale of both the popcorn, and Coca-Cola. Reduction in Shoplifting: Recently, another way of communicating via subliminal messages have been discovered; it is by using the music and audio programs. The ‘TIME’ magazine has written in one of its articles, published in 1979, titled as ‘Secret Voices’, that in US and Canada, about 50 departmental stores were using this system of subliminal voice messages, in order to reduce the shoplifting and the employee theft. The article says that one of the East Coast chain of departmental stores, reported a 37% reduction of theft, leading to a profit of about $600,000 over a period of nine months Similarly, the WALL STREET JOURNAL, published an article in 1980, stating that this way of communication was Subliminal recording 4 used in a New Orleans supermarket. It resulted in a reduction in the pilferage loss from about $50,000 per six months to less than $13,000. Also, there was a drop in the Cashier shortages, from $125 per week, to about less than $10 per week. Here, the subliminal messages used were: â€Å"I take a great deal of pride in being honest. I will not steal. I am honest. † Now, in the next section, we come to the scientific evidence of the effects of subliminal recordings on the subconscious mind. Scientific Evidence Extensive Documentation of the Subliminal Perception: Dr. Norman Dixon, a psychologist at the University College in London, England, has summarized 748 research studies on subliminal perception, in his work titled as â€Å"Preconscious Processing. † One of such studies was done by Zuckerman, in 1960. This research work showed that the subliminal stimulus can by-pass the conscious effort of a person. It also stated that it makes it very unlikely for a person to resist the subconscious instructions. In his experiment, Zuckerman gave the Thematic Apperception Test cards to his subjects. These cards contained the ambiguous pictures, with the subliminal message ‘Write more’ or ‘Don’t Write’ on it. These messages clearly showed their effects as long as they were subliminal, but as soon as the subjects came to perceive them consciously, they lost their effects on them. Behavioral Improvements from Subliminal Messages: Dr. Lloyd H. Silverman, a psychologist at New York University has been working on the research of subliminal recordings since last 20 years. He experimented on 40 groups of subjects. All of them showed a positive response in the form of change of their behavior after exposure to Subliminal Recording 5 selected subliminal messages. One of such groups was that of the smokers. In 1980, he selected half a group of smokers, who were receiving the behavior modification therapy to quit smoking. They were exposed to the subliminal messages, and the results observed one month after the end of treatment showed that about 66% of the patients were still non-smokers, compared to 13% of the control group. Other groups of subjects used for experiments by Silverman included assertiveness training classes, adolescents receiving psychotherapy, college students in group therapy, alcoholics in the Alcoholics Anonymous counseling and people suffering from the insect phobias and overeating.