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Tag: subliminal

How advertising really works

October 4, 2013 5 Comments
How advertising really works

Derren Brown is a British “mentalist” and entertainer. He has a number of fascinating videos over on You Tube, including this classic – quite simply, the most persuasive illustration of nonconscious processing I have ever seen: What lessons can we draw from this clever experiment? First, nonconscious processing exists. Our brains are busy taking in stimuli […]

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Priming and the plight of public opinion polling

July 20, 2013 0 Comments
Priming and the plight of public opinion polling

Public opinion polling has, well, issues that it needs to work through. Cengiz Erisen got his PhD in political science at SUNY Stony Brook in 2009.  He recently published an article based on his dissertation in Political Psychology, co-authored with two of his Stony Brook professors, Milton Lodge and Charles Tabor.  Titled “Affective Contagion in Effortful Political […]

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The Hidden Persuaders: The best book I (n)ever read

July 8, 2013 1 Comment
The Hidden Persuaders: The best book I (n)ever read

In 2007 there were a number of reviews and appreciations of The Hidden Persuaders written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its publication. I just finished reading a very interesting account by Michelle Nelson, called “The Hidden Persuaders, Then and Now,” published in the Journal of Advertising, Spring 2008. Diligent googling might find you a […]

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The brain’s implicit sensing tools

June 11, 2013 0 Comments
The brain’s implicit sensing tools

A thread that runs through quite a number of the journalistic treatments I read about neuroscience applied to commercial stimuli (like ads, products, and brands) is fear … fear of a “Manchurian Candidate” technique that will turn people into consuming robots, fear of privacy, fear of science being co-opted by greedy corporations at the expense […]

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Subliminal advertising and free speech

May 17, 2013 0 Comments
Subliminal advertising and free speech

Professor Marc Blitz has posted a lengthy but very thought-provoking article over at Neuroethics & Law Blog about whether the First Amendment should protect “subliminal messaging”.  He does not come to any hard and fast conclusions, but in good lawyerly fashion examines various arguments for and against the influence of deliberate and inadvertent subliminal stimuli, whether they […]

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Subliminal exposure to national flags: Branding at work?

April 24, 2013 0 Comments
Subliminal exposure to national flags: Branding at work?

The title of this post refers to a December 2007 article in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by psychologist Ran R. Hassin and colleagues, “Subliminal exposure to national flags affects political thought and behavior”.  The full article is available here. Unlike most academic article titles, this one says it all, thank you.  Hassin […]

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