"Subliminal Programming/Learning/Influence"

“As the Recording Industry Association of America continues its sacred quest to prevent consumers with access to technology from doing anything that even hints of media piracy (apparently by hiring unlicensed investigators to help), it looks like media companies are employing older technologies to try to stop viewers from even thinking about copying their TV programs.

Last night, my husband and I were watching a time-delayed version of Eureka, a reasonably entertaining comedy/drama on the SciFi channel. We were about to delete the program from the DVR when I noticed that some kind of image with very large type had flashed briefly at the end of the closing credits. We took the recording back a minute or so and played the credits back very slowly, a couple of seconds at a time. Sure enough, in large white letters on a dark screen, a message read: "Watching us is hilarious. But copying us is dangerous. Don't do it." It had lasted under a second. So the Sci Fi channel is now using subliminal messaging to try to discourage its viewers from copying (and, presumably, distributing) its programming.

Part of me - the part that's a confirmed science fiction reader - immediately flashed to an imaginary scenario in which thousands of Eureka watchers, programmed by hidden subliminal messages, mindlessly howl with laughter during the program, then throw their DVD recorders out the window, chanting, "Copying is dangerous. Don't do it," while SciFi channel executives sit in plush uptown offices stroking their mustaches and cackling with evil glee. The other part of me is wondering whether there is any point at which media companies and the RIAA will realize that playing these games only serve to further alienate their customer base -- and won't do a whole lot to prevent piracy. Except, perhaps, make us laugh.”

- http://blogs.computerworld.com/watching_us_is_dangerous&usg=__y5SV4hc-iggFiZ5zLqiN1tN42wg=

"Humans Can Learn From Subliminal Cues Alone"

“Scientists have demonstrated for the first time subconscious learning in humans akin to that detailed in rats and pigeons by the famed-behaviorist B.F. Skinner seventy years ago. The evidence comes from a cleverly designed experiment that eliminated conscious reasoning as a variable in conditioning. Study participants were shown a cue for less five hundredths of a second, far below the threshold for conscious vision. Then the respondents were asked to "use their intuition" to determine if pressing a button would yield a monetary reward after the cue. Study participants were able to choose the correct button 63 percent of the time, but only when they received a reward. Without it, participants did not fare better than chance would predict.

Using magnetic-resonance imaging technology, the team of psychologists were also able to pin down the area driving this subconscious learning process: the striatum, a primitive region of the brain. They published their latest research in the journal Neuron. "For me, it's a fundamental result. We know that the brain can learn subconsciously the connections between subliminal cues and outcomes," said Mathias Pessiglione, co-author of the paper and a neuroscientist at the Centre for Neuroimaging Research in Paris. "For some kinds of tasks, the striatum knows more than you." Behaviorists have long been able to demonstrate that animals without consciousness can learn shockingly complex behaviors, if they are properly rewarded. Evidence has been mounting from this group of psychologists and others, that humans can learn some things in the same way. The new research even suggests a neurobiological basis for this similarity, despite humans vastly greater conscious processing power.

Takeo Watanabe, a psychologist at Boston University who was not involved with the study said that the new research shows unequivocally that humans can be trained to learn a system they don't understand with cues they can't see. "They showed associated learning on the basis of a cue which is invisible," said Watanabe. "I think their contribution is very important." By restricting the amount of time that the clues were displayed to study participants, they ensured that the brain's conscious vision system could not not process the information. Indeed, when shown the cues after the study, participants did not recall having seen any of them before.

Brain scans of participants showed that the cues did not activate the brain's main processing centers, but rather the striatum, which is presumed to employ machine-learning algorithms to solve problems. "I think everyone more or less agrees that the striatum is very important for learning and given its primitive structure, it's probably machine type learning," said said Chris Frith, a University of College London psychologist and co-author of the Neuron paper. The evidence suggests that the striatum is the seat of the brain's "gut instinct." But Pessiglione, the neuroscientist, said that his earlier work suggested that conscious thought still played a very important in decision-making. (After all, the striatum was only right about two-thirds of the time.) "When you become aware of the associations between the cues and the outcomes, you amplify the phenomenon," Pessiglione said. "You make better choices."

Pessiglione also indicated that he didn't see any practical applications of the findings, say, for advertisers. But there are certain limited human situations where trusting your gut makes sense. The striatum is best in high-reward, simple decision making where subconscious cues could be conveying information that your conscious inspection would miss, for example, "tells" in poker. "The situation where you are playing poker and something tells you that [another player] is bluffing," he said. "You have the intuition that you have to raise and you don't know why, but you're rewarded because you get money. It seems to be implemented in the striatum."

Just as some are better at poker than others, some participants in Pessiglione's study were far superior at using their intuition to win money. It was the subjects who believed that they had better intuition or "special powers," as he put it, that did actually have the best intuition. "These subjects were convinced that they had special powers," he said. "They had that kind of subpsychotic talking." That led Pessiglione to wonder if schizophrenics, who often believe they have special powers, could actually possess at least one: highly-developed intuition. "We haven't tested schizophrenic patients but maybe they are better than normal people on this task," Pessiglione said.”

- http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/finding-the-bra.html#more

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