BY RIE MIYAHARA
In this study conducted by Kirk Smith and Martha Rogers, the effectiveness of subliminal messages in television commercials was measured in two experiments. Four goals of the experiments were reported. The first goal was to develop a procedure in which it was possible to specify in every instance whether or not the subject was aware of the added information designed to be "subliminal." The second goal was to compare the effect of undetected material with comparable effects of detected material. The third goal was to determine whether undetected materials have an influence on a population of informed individuals. And finally,, the fourth goal was to determine whether it is possible to influence television viewers subliminally.
In the experiments, after subjects watched television commercials, monitoring them for a message (the words "choose this") presented at different levels of contrast with the background, subjects were first asked to rate their intention to purchase the product, use the service, or agree with the idea advertised. Then, they were asked to indicate whether they saw the message "choose this" in the television commercials, and also whether they have seen this commercial before. Finally, subjects were asked to recall as many commercials as possible. As a result, in Experiment 1, neither detected nor undetected messages affected these rating compared with a non-message condition. Both undetected and detected message in television commercials have no effect on a viewer's intentions. In Experiment 2, incentives produced higher ratings with detected messages. And with undetectted messges, the effect was statistically ambiguous and only one tenth as large.
The results of the experiments indicated that when a message is added to a television commercial in such a way that the viewer fails to detect its presence, it does not increase the viewer's intention to purchase the product, use the service or agree with the idea advertised. The largest possible effect of subliminal (undetected) messages is much smaller than the effect of supraliminal (detected) messages.
REFERENCE
Smith,K.H., & Rogers,M. (1994). Effectiveness of subliminal messages in television commercials: Two experiments. Journal of Applied Psychology,79, 866-874