Now, do you suddenly associate Layne Wallace with Mel Gibson, Albert Einstein, and Ghandi?

Do you feel a sudden need to tell the President of the University of North Florida that Layne Wallace is working too hard and needs more money?

Do you feel that Layne Wallace's wife is one of the luckiest women on earth?

If you answered "YES" to any of the questions above, I appreciate it, but you should seek mental help immediately because it has nothing to do with subliminal information presentation. We've completed five formal research projects on subliminal information presentation by computer. The basic underlying concepts that we've found are:

1) Yes, there is an effect caused by subliminal information presentation.

2) That effect is most prevalent when the subliminal information is reinforcing information already known by the subject (such as displaying computer instructions that the subject has already learned). Requests for HELP were significantly lower in the groups that received subliminal information versus the groups that received no information, subliminal "garbage", or groups that received new commands.

3) The subliminal effect didn't seem as pronounced when we introduced new information in the subliminal screens.

4) Much of the previous research on subliminal information presentation by computer was invalid because they didn't synchronize the presentation with the computer monitor screen redraw.

Several papers based on this research have been published in journals and presented at conferences. The main one is:

Wallace, F. L., Flanery, J. M., & Knezek, G. A. The Effect of Subliminal HELP Presentations on Learning a Text Editor. Information Processing and Management, 27(2/3), 1991.

Please see the publication list for details.

Bottom line: Our research suggests that subliminal information works to passively reinforce existing information but does not seem to affect the acquisition of new information. Naturally, we're going to keep looking. However, none of our research would support any company trying to sell you a product that helps you stop smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or retain your hair by subliminal means.

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