What is subliminal priming?
Subliminal priming describes the activation of existing knowledge concepts in the brain, through unconscious primes in the environment. Subliminal messages are used everywhere, from advertisement over the presidential election campaign in the USA to self-help tapes. Subliminal – below the treshold of consciousness.This means that people are not consciously aware of a cue or prime and/or they are not aware of the behavior that is caused by it. Martijn Veltkamp defines three stages of unconsciousness. The extreme case – People are neither aware of the prime, nor of their behavior because of it. Moderate case – This case is the most common one; people are not aware of the prime but well aware of their behavior. Mild case – People are aware of the prime as well as their behavior because but they do not see the connection. This case can be found in product placement. The ideomotor principle, an idea from William James (19th century), sais that people imitate other people’s behavior in order
