Imagine a typical day. You wake up, run to class, hurry to another stressful day of work, waiting for the clock to reach that glorious hour, only to become engulfed in the congested traffic. The hum of the radio attempts to calm you, but only makes you more anxious with the messages of sales and blowouts. After such a hectic day, you open the door to your house, and lunge into the comfort of your couch, turning on the television to ease the stress of your day. As you sit there in a completely relaxed state, letting the flashing images of the screen enter you mind, you don't comprehend that you are perhaps being persuaded. Could it be that advertising companies actually try to infiltrate your mind to get you to buy things you may not want or even need? What is subliminal advertising, how does it work, and is it even legal? These are questions that are difficult to answer since subliminal messages are messages that essentially can't even be seen, felt, or heard.

Subliminal messages are something that are difficult to grasp and understand since they enter our mind beneath our perception. In fact, the word subliminal comes from the joining of two Latin words: "sub" and

In fact, in California, Phillip Wyman, introduced a bill that would require materials containing subliminal materials to carry the words, "this material contains subliminal embedding." Anyone who violated the law would have to cough up $1000. Wyman's reason for introducing the bill was because he felt that embedded images infringed on ones privacy and could be considered unethical. The ACLU didn't tend to agree with Wyman. Instead they viewed it as a, "potential problem." Nevertheless, the bill passed in June of 1983, but it was amended and later removed by the Judiciary Committee (Haberstroh 128).

Ok, so with all this cleared up, why deal with it? Is it even plausible to worry about something that in actual fact we can't even sense? Most advertising companies are hoping that Dr. Key will just fade into the distance, and that people will forget the hype of subliminal messages. In all certainty, Key's theories have become increasingly popular with age (Haberstroh 88). Subliminal messages are such an interesting subject because of the controversy that surrounds it. A survey conducted by Research Analysis Corps. of 800 random adults in 1991, found that sixty two percent of Americans believe that advertising companies are relentlessly adding embedded images in their ads (Haberstroh 98).

To detect just why it is that these awkward conceptions could be made, Vicary also conducted a study in a supermarket. Women shoppers were filmed by a hidden camera, the focal point was their eyes and how many times they would blink while shopping. The eye blinks an average of thirty two times per minute in a relaxed state. If a person is at a slightly excited state, the rate increases, and at a lethargic state it decreases. The women filmed shopping had a blink rate of 14 times per minute. That is substantially low, considering the normal rate, they could be considered to be in a hypnotic trance. As the women continued to the counter, their blink rate sped up to 54 blinks per minute. The amplified blink rate showed the increased tension as the bill was rung up, many times with the bill being far more then the women had to spend, leading Vicary to believe that women were actually in a hypnotic trance while shopping, and who else put them in the trance but the ad agencies with their sneaky subliminal messages (Packard 101).

"limen." The word "Sub" means "beneath" and "limen" means entrance. Therefore, subliminal advertising is an advertisement intended to enter our minds just below our level of conscious discernment, "under the line" of conscious perception (Haberstroh 1).

Subliminal messaging is so incredibly controversial, that the studies that did hold any evidence of subliminal effects weren't even considered valid. The reason these facts aren't considered legitimate is because of the lack of cold hard evidence. One study will show how subliminal advertising works, and then another will nullify the evidence shown be the earlier studies. A study was conducted with three groups who were shown 20 words. Ten words dealt with cheese, (words like moon and brick) and then 10 impartial words. One of the groups were shown the word "cheese" subliminally, another group was shown the word blatantly, while one group wasn't shown the word at all. The group that was shown the word subliminally recalled the greatest number of words (Bornstein 263). This evidence is rather sketchy, considering who can really tell if the subliminal showing of "cheese" contributed to the first group remembering the most words. If there is a stimulus that we are unaware of, how are we to realize if we are responding to it or not. If we can't see it or hear it, how do we know if it is there? If we don't know that it is there, how do we respond to it? In these terms, acting on subliminal messages would seem to have a high likelihood of occurring (Dixon 23).

James Vicary was one of the first people to ever challenge subliminal advertisi

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Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)