WHS AP Psychology
Unit 4: Sensation, Perception and
States of Consciousness
Essential Task 4-6: Discuss how experience,
context and culture can influence perceptual
processes with specific attention to perceptual
set, illusions, change blindness, and selective
attention.
Gestalt
Principles
Perceptual
Constancies
Basic
Principles
Visual
Illusions
Depth
Perception
We are
here
Perception
Sensation
Vision
Theories
The Eye
Pain
Other
Senses
Taste
Hearing
The Ear
Smell
Theories
Stages/REM
Meditation
Circadian
Rhythm
Hidden
Observer
Disorders
Sleep
Hypnosis
Dreams
Altered States
of
Consciousnes
s
States of
Consciousness
Daydreaming
and Fantasy
Drug-Altered
Consciousnes
s
Stimulants
Waking
Consciousness
Substance
Abuse
Depressants
Hallucinogens
Actor
Essential
Task
4-:
Outline
• Influences on perception
– Subliminal messages?
– perceptual set
– illusions
– Inattention blindness
– change blindness
Subliminal Threshold
Outline
Subliminal Threshold:
When energy of the
stimulus is below one’s
absolute threshold for
conscious awareness.
What do we perceive
then?
Subliminal Perception
Sensation without perception?
Outline
• Subliminal = stimuli that sensory system
responds to, but due to short duration or
subtle form, don’t reach threshold of
cognition
Quick Survey
1. Do you think you are influenced by
subliminal messages in advertising?
2. Do you think you are influenced by
everyday advertisements that you
perceive consciously (e.g. laundry
detergent, beverages)?
…You Decide
Outline
Could 1/30th of a second really influence
impressions of Al Gore?
…You Decide
Outline
Could 1/30th of a second really influence
impressions of Al Gore?
We are not obedient to
Subliminal Messages
Outline
• Research shows that the effect only occurs in
controlled laboratory studies for a short time.
When flashed words to elicit these moods we see
slightly:
– More competitive participants
– More critical participants
– More supportive
• Research outside the laboratory shows no
significant effect of subliminal information
• We don’t blindly obey!
• Placebo Effect with subliminal self help tapes
Outline
Vicary’s Study
Outline
• New Jersey, 1957:
– Over 6 weeks, 45,699 people see
subliminal ads
– “Eat Popcorn” – sales up 57.5%
– “Drink Coke” – sales up18.1%
• “Minds have been broken and entered”
Except . . . .
Outline
• The Vicary “Eat Popcorn/Drink
Coke” Study well. . . .
• In a 1962 interview, Vicary admitted
that he had made the whole thing
up!
Alleged types of subliminal
presentation
Outline
• Flashing it on the screen so quickly you
can not perceive it but you still see it.
Below the sensory perception
threshold.
• Playing it backwards
• Embedding it into another image.
• Playing it at a low-volume masked over
by other music or sounds.
Maybe Backmasking works?
Outline
• A recording studio technique where
backward messages are
deliberately superimposed on the
soundtrack
• The fear . . . “Human brains are
capable of receiving, scanning,
deciphering, storing and later reacting
to subliminal or subconscious
messages”
• http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.ht
Another One Bites the Dust
Outline
• Forward
• Reverse
• "It's fun to smoke marijuana"
Stairway to Heaven
Outline
• Forward
• Reverse
• ""Glory glory to my sweet Satan, there
was a little child born, it makes me sad,
whose power is Satan"
The most famous backmasking ever?
Outline
• Forward
• Reverse
• Message - "Paul is a dead man, miss
him, miss him, MISS HIM" The Beatles
have vehemently denied this. Still fans
of every generation have listened to
this message and heard the same
words.
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Outline
• Forward
• Reverse
• "I wish there were no Allah."
Pokemon Rap
Outline
• Forward
• Reverse
• "I love satan, love satan. I love satan,
love satan."
• http://www.backmaskonline.com/pop.
html
Maybe Subliminal Embeds?
Outline
• In the 1970s, Wilson Bryan Key wrote
such books as Subliminal Seduction and
Media Sexploitation in which he claimed
subliminal sexual symbols or objects are
often used to entice consumers to buy
and use various products and services.
One of Key’s most famous claims is that
the word sex was often embedded in
products and advertisements.
Subliminal Embeds -
Not the last of it…
Outline
• Sexual imagery in
ads?
– Wilson Bryan Key:
“sex” in ice cubes,
nude figures in images
from butter to icing in
cake mix ads.
– Even if images aren’t
consciously perceived,
they put us in good
mood and pay more
attention to ad
Outline
Outline
Outline
Outline
Why? Perceptual Set!!!
Outline
• Perceptual set is a bias or readiness to
perceive certain aspects of available
sensory data and to ignore others.
• Listeners “hear” diabolical messages in
rock music because they are prepared
to “discover” certain messages, and
therefore they do. Vokey and Read
1985
This is not to say that sex isn’t used
in ads.
Outline
• It is used harmfully and ubiquitously.
• We swim in a toxic media environment
that perpetuates some of the worst
messages of our society.
Cintia Dicker – 1986
25 year old swimsuit model
with breast implants
In February 2006, American Eagle launched the
aerie intimates sub-brand, targeting the
American15–21 year old female demographic
segment.
Product Placement = Not subliminal!
Outline
Product Placement
Outline
Product Placement
Outline
Perceptual Set Activity
Group A
Outline
• You are going to look briefly at a
picture and then answer some
questions about it. The picture is a
rough sketch of a poster for a costume
ball. Do not dwell on the picture. Look
at it only long enough to “take it all in”
once. After this, you will answer YES or
NO to a series of questions.
Group B
Outline
• You are going to look briefly at a
picture and then answer some
questions about it. The picture is a
rough sketch of a poster for a trained
seal act. Do not dwell on the picture.
Look at it only long enough to “take it
all in” once. After this, you will answer
YES or NO to a series of questions.
Picture
Outline
In the picture was there . .
Outline
1. A car?
2. A man?
3. A woman?
4. A child?
5. An animal?
6. A whip?
7. A sword?
8. A man’s hat?
9. A ball?
10. A fish?
Conclusion
Outline
• Top Down processing – you go beyond
the sensory information to try to make
meaning out of ambiguity in your
world
• What you expect (your experiences
and your perceptual set) drives this
process
• Today we will see what expectations
we all have in common.
The first step in Perception is
Attention
Outline
• We sense 11,000,000 bits of
information per second.
• We consciously only process about 40
bits (Wilson 2002).
• The process by which we attend to
these bits is called selective attention
• Selective Attention can miss things!
• (Click here)
Inattentional Blindness
Outline
• Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris
(1999)
• Participants told to count how many times
the black jersey team passes the ball
• 50+% of the participants completely missed
the gorrilla
Change Blindness
Outline
• We are blind to changes in our
environment.
Extrasensory Perception
• Refers to extraordinary perception
such as
– Clairvoyance – awareness of an unknown
object or event
– Telepathy – knowledge of someone else’s
thoughts or feelings
– Precognition – foreknowledge of future
events
• Research has been unable to
Ganzfeld Procedure
• Bem & Honorton, 1994
• All sensory information reduced
• “receiver” in reclining chair in sound proof
chamber with ping-pong balls, red light,
earphones, white noise
• In Separate room, “sender” concentrates
on visual stimuli
• 32% hit rate better than chance
• Has not been replicated
• Experimentation has not yet given
scientific support