To assess the effect of subliminally embedded auditory material on short-term recall, 60 volunteer subjects undertook a face-name-occupation memory test before and after a 15-min. intervention. They were randomly assigned into three groups (a control group and two experimental groups) and allocated to one of the following conditions: (1) no sound, (2) supraliminal presentation of relaxing music, and (3) subliminal presentation of memory-improvement affirmations embedded in relaxing music. After intervention, only the subliminal group significantly improved their performance on recall of names.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BorgeatF.ElieL.ChaloultL.ChabotR. (1985) Psychophysiological responses to masked auditory stimuli. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 30, 22–27.
2.
CohenG. (1990) Why is it difficult to put names to faces?British Journal of Psychology, 81, 1–11.
3.
DixonN. F. (1965) Symbolic associations following subliminal stimulation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 37, 159–170.
4.
DixonN. F. (1981) Preconscious processing. New York: Wiley.
5.
DixonN. F.HenleyS. H. A. (1991) Unconscious perception: Possible implications of data from academic research for clinical practice. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 179, 243–252.
6.
MarcelA. J. (1983) Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 197–237.
