Topic summary
Subliminal message
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Subliminal stimuli.
Consumption, television and criticism
Johan Karremans suggests that subliminal messages have an effect when the messages are goal-relevant. In a study, researchers made half of the 105 volunteers feel thirsty by giving them food with lots of salt before performing the experiment. At the end, as predicted, they found that the subliminal message had succeeded among the thirsty. 80% of them chose a certain ice tea brand versus the 20% of the control group that were not exposed to the message. Those who were not thirsty did not choose the drink in question, despite the subliminal message. The experiment suggests that in certain circumstances (i.e., in the confines of one limited study) subliminal advertising worked.