FOCUS ON RESEARCH Subliminal Messages in Rock Music

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The Scope of Consciousness
■ What evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
The effectiveness of self-help tapes and other subliminal products must be evaluated
through further experiments, such as the one just mentioned, that carefully control for
expectations. Those who support and sell subliminal influence methods are responsible for conducting those experiments, but as long as customers are willing to buy subliminal products on the basis of testimonials alone, scientific evaluation efforts will
probably come only from those interested in protecting consumers from fraud.
■ What conclusions are most reasonable?
The available evidence suggests that subliminal perception occurs but that it has no
potential for “mind control” (Greenwald, Klinger, & Schuh, 1995). Subliminal effects are
usually small and short-lived, and they mainly affect simple judgments and general
measures of overall arousal. As for subliminal messages aimed at long-term behavior
change, most researchers agree that such messages have no special power to create needs,
goals, skills, or actions (Pratkanis, 1992). In fact, advertisements, political speeches, and
other messages that we can perceive consciously have far stronger persuasive effects.
FOCUS ON RESEARCH
ould the persuasive power of subliminal messages be increased if
Subliminal Messages in
they were presented at normal
speed but in reverse, so that we could not conRock Music
sciously understand them? According to
numerous Internet web sites, this is exactly
how satanic or drug-related messages have been hidden in the recorded music of rock
bands such as Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, and the
Rolling Stones. These alleged “backmasked” subliminal messages are said to have influenced listeners to commit suicide or murder. For this claim to be true, however, the subliminal backward message would have to be perceived at some level of consciousness.
W
■ What was the researchers’ question?
There is no good evidence that backward messages are actually present in most of the
music cited. However, John R. Vokey and J. Don Read (1985) asked whether any backward messages that might exist could be perceived and understood while the music was
playing forward. They also asked whether such a message, if perceived at all, would have
any effect on the listener’s behavior.
■ How did the researchers answer the question?
First, Vokey and Read made tape recordings of a person reading portions of the Twentythird Psalm and Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.” This poem includes many nonsense
words, but it follows the rules of grammar (e.g., “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves . . .”).
These recordings were then played backward to college students, who were asked to judge
whether what they heard would have been meaningful or nonsensical if played forward.
■ What did the researchers find?
When the students heard the readings being played backward, they could not discriminate sense from nonsense. Nor could they tell the difference between declarative
sentences and questions. They could not even identify the original material on which
the recordings were based. In short, the participants could not understand the backward
Answer key to Figure 4.2: Figures 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 12 can exist in three dimensional space.