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Percentage 100%
ENGAGE 1.6-2 of correct
detections
(Out of class) Have students place a 75
ticking alarm clock (or anything that
makes a soft noise) on a table in a
quiet room. They should move away 50
so that they can no longer hear the
ticking. They should then gradually Figure 1.6-2 25 Subliminal Dan Dunkley/Science Source
stimuli
move toward the clock until they Threshold detected
begin to hear the sound. This is the Hearing tests locate our 0 Low Absolute Medium
thresholds for various sound
“momentary” threshold. If they remain frequencies. threshold
in place, occasionally they won’t be Intensity of stimulus
able to hear the sound and will need
to step forward to reach threshold. At
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
other times the sound will get louder Signal success When reading
and they will be able to step back. mammograms, health professionals
This changing sensitivity indicates that seek to detect the presence of a
faint cancer stimulus (signal) amid
the “absolute threshold” is anything background stimulation (noise), and
without raising false alarms. New
but absolute. 3-D ultrasound breast-imaging
technologies aim to clarify the signal
and reduce the rate of false-positive
Information from Coren, S., Ward, L. M., & Enns, results.
J. T. (1999). Sensation and perception (5th ed.).
Harcourt Brace.
TEACH 1.6-2
TRY THIS
Enrichment Try out this old riddle on a couple of
friends. “You’re driving a bus with Tamara Collins/Delphinus Medical Technologies, Inc.
Some students may have heard that 12 passengers. At your first stop, 6
movie theaters in the 1950s used sub- passengers get off. At the second
stop, 3 get off. At the third stop, 2
more get off but 3 new people get
liminal advertising by placing frames Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
on. What color are the bus driver’s
that said “buy popcorn” and “buy eyes?” Do your friends detect the
Coke” within movies, with the goal of signal — who is the bus driver? — amid
the accompanying noise?
subliminally encouraging people to
want to purchase concessions. This
Stimuli you cannot consciously detect 50 percent of the time are subliminal — below
advertising ploy never happened. The your absolute threshold (Figure 1.6-2). The unconscious mind is like the wind: We don’t see
source of the myth, James Vicary, it, but we see its effects. When your face appears on a screen faster than you can perceive it
actually lied about experiments he subliminal below one’s consciously, researchers can nevertheless detect your brain’s response (Wójcik et al., 2019).
conducted at a New Jersey movie the- absolute threshold for conscious The brain knows what the conscious mind doesn’t. So, can we be controlled by subliminal
messages? (See the Developing Arguments feature: Subliminal Sensation and Subliminal
awareness.
ater. His lie, however, led the Federal Persuasion.)
Communications Commission to ban
“subliminal advertising” in 1974. 118 Unit 1 Biological Bases of Behavior
Information from snopes.com

03_myersAPpsychology4e_28116_ch01_002_163.indd 118 15/12/23 4:32 PM

118 Unit 1 Biological Bases of Behavior

03_HammerTE4e_47547_ch01_2a_163_4pp.indd 118 07/02/24 5:26 PM