Sex & The Subliminal Message
Author: Michael McGrath


Sex & The Subliminal Message
In recent years a cognitive neuroscientist, called Sheng
He, conducted studies into the effectiveness of using
subliminal images and messages for influencing the choices
of people. He discovered some startling truths.

During his studies at the University of Minnesota, Sheng He
and his colleagues conducted several investigations into
the use of subliminal images. Having recruited volunteers
from different sexual orientations they gathered them
together into groups consisting of 10 members each. Each
group was classified as consisting of, heterosexual men,
heterosexual women, homosexual men or homosexual women.
Each member of these groups where then shown specially
prepared images which were pointed directly at their left
and right eyes in a separate sequence.

The type of image used is known as a Gabor patch which was
named after the mathematician who created it. Gabor created
this image in order to test a human's ability to determine
spatial frequency and visual space. Sheng He explains that
under normal conditions a human being has his/her two eyes
focused on the same image. Therefore there is no conflict
in the brain about the image being viewed. However, by
using a Gabor Patch it is possible to create a situation
where the two eyes are looking at two completely different
images.

Using a Gabor patch it has been determined that when one
eye is presented with an image that has high contrast and
the other eye is presented with an image that is static a
person will only be able to see the dynamic image and will
be unaware of the other. The other static image remains
totally undetected.

This was important to Sheng only due to the fact that by
using a high contrast image, presented to only one eye, he
and his researchers could cancel out an image chosen by
them that was being seen by the other eye. This meant that
Sheng's volunteers would only be aware of the high contrast
image that he showed them and would, supposedly, be unaware
of the other image regardless of what image or message he
placed there. They would think that both eyes were viewing
the same high contrast image!

During the experiment the researchers presented a normal
high contrast image to one of the volunteer's eyes, and an
erotic image (which would go unnoticed) to the other eye.
The use of the high contrast image ensured that the erotic
image would go undetected. Erotic images where created to
test their appeal depending on the sexuality of the group
to which the volunteers belonged. These images ranged from
a naked woman to a naked man. For example the naked woman
was shown to a heterosexual man, a homosexual man, a
homosexual woman and a heterosexual woman.

To make sure the "invisible" images were definitely not
detected consciously the volunteers were instructed to
press a key on a computer keyboard if they noticed any
difference between the images that they were seeing through
their left or right eye.

In all, 32 trials were conducted and Sheng's team found
that the heterosexual men displayed a significantly higher
propensity for detecting the orientation of Gabor patches
but only when they were presented in a slot that was
previously occupied by the "invisible" image of a naked
woman. This finding showed that the picture of the naked
woman was acting as a subliminal image.  However, the
opposite was the case when heterosexual men were shown a
Gabor Patch where the "invisible" image was that of a naked
man. In these cases they had a much more difficult time
detecting the orientation of the Gabor patch. Strangely,
the heterosexual women and homosexual men had much better
results when they were shown a picture of a naked woman.

Sheng's tests show that the results were significantly
better when the volunteers were shown the subliminal
pictures that appealed to their sexuality. It also shows
the power of sexual subliminal conditioning because the
effects were not as good when volunteers were shown the
pictures without the aid of the high contrast subliminal
effect and when they could therefore consciously see the
pictures.

So, it would appear from Sheng's experiments, that sexual
subliminal images are detected by the subconscious mind and
acted upon by the conscious mind. Therefore it is not
surprising that sexual images are constantly used in
advertising as this seems to stimulate the mind into
becoming more aware of other things connected to the image.


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