Subsonic dissonance: how do you know if your mind has been hacked?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What do you think will happen if two people say different things to you at the same time? One in the left ear and the other in the right? And a very curious thing will happen: no matter how hard you try, you can only be aware of one text. The other will be unavailable

Your hearing works great, and you can hear everything perfectly, but you will only hear one of the two suggested options. You also hear the second, but you are not aware of it.

Cherry, working with two signal sources that a person listens to at the same time (using special headphones that serve different tape recordings in two ears), discovered a cocktail party effect - the ability to listen and remember only one of two conversations.

The subject had to listen carefully to one of the recordings, and, upon completion, he could easily retell what he heard. But from another recording, he caught almost nothing.

The same effect was found in the field of visual signals: when different movie scenes were applied to the retinas of the right and left eyes, the subject could perceive only one of them.

But. There are two important things. Even three. First: your subconscious mind hears both (!) Texts.

You can compare this to a telephone security system that "listens" to all conversations and automatically starts recording when "terrorist" words like "bomb", "terrorist attack", "detonate" and so on appear on the air.

This system is a myth, since all conversations are recorded without exception, and tapes are listened to if there is a reason.

I also very much doubt that terrorists use words like "bomb", "terrorist attack" or "detonate" on the air. But that's not the point. It is important that a person has such a defense system called "subconsciousness", which controls all sounds of the ether. This is the first thing.

Second: when these important words appear on the air, the consciousness involuntarily switches to this channel, which was not realized until that time. For example, a representative from the FBI faction sits and listens to telephone conversations of potential terrorists. There are a lot of lines, but physically you can listen to only one. Here he sits and listens as the worst terrorist orders pizza, and suddenly - bang! - hears the word "bomb", which sounds on the other line. Attention automatically switches to this conversation, and ordering a pizza "falls out" of consciousness.

Third: we can arbitrarily switch from one channel to another. For example, the FBI listens to the conversation about the "bomb" and realizes that the potential terrorist is talking about a beautiful woman. That's all. Now he can "return" his attention to pizza if he wants to. Or keep listening to the conversation about women.

If you ask the FBI agent what was discussed in the second conversation before the word "bomb", he will not be able to remember anything. And if the agent is asked what was discussed in the first conversation after the word "bomb", he will not be able to remember anything.

No matter how psychologists say there, there are no "tape recorders" that record everything in our head. And if you haven't listened to the conversation, you won't be able to remember it.

Even if it was "heard" by your subconscious. For his "behavior" resembles the aforementioned system of defense against terrorists. As soon as the keyword sounds, recording starts. But if no such word is spoken, the conversation is ignored. The agent will be able to recall the conversation about pizza before the word "bomb" and the conversation about "bomb" after the word "bomb". The second part of the first conversation and the first part of the second conversation do not exist in his memory.

Why am I talking about this in such detail? Because, through the efforts of neurolinguistic programming, an obsession appeared in advertising to "program" the client's subconscious with the help of special keywords. It is called the "inserted message technique". Another text is artificially inserted into the advertising text, which is written in a different size, in a different color, in bold or italics. When the client reads this text, the "inserted" words are subconsciously (!) Folded into a separate text, and the client actually reads the hidden message. More often than not, this is an imperative. For example, buy from us. Here's a theory. Does it work? Let's figure it out.

Inserted message technique

The pioneer of the inserted message technique was the outstanding psychoanalyst Carl Jung (a student of Freud, the author of the famous theory of the collective unconscious, which was also reflected in advertising). Jung offered the client a set of words to which the client was supposed to respond with free associations. For example, the word "mother".

And the client says what associations he has. But the point was not at all what associations the client suggests for the word "mother", "father" or "childhood."

Jung noted which words cause unexpected difficulties with associations

If the client cannot find an association for the word "cat" for a long time, Jung suggests that the client's cat is somehow connected with a painful past experience. For example, when the client was small, the cat scared or scratched him badly. And if the association comes easily, then there is no problem.

In this way, Carl Jung was identifying traumatic experiences from the distant past, and without the knowledge of the client. And while other psychoanalysts "looked for" the problem, Jung found it in a few minutes, which allowed him to work on it later.

In 1936, Milton Erickson, an internationally renowned psychotherapist and hypnotist, wrote an article describing the result of the Jung test. The subject was a young woman with a fear of pregnancy.

In his research, Erickson presented her with the stimulus word "belly", and received a story in response, and some words from this text were, as it were, in bold. For example, the intonation changed. Or an involuntary gesture was made. In general, it was obvious that some words were emotionally richer than others.

Erickson separated these words from the rest of the text, and he got a connected story about an unwanted pregnancy (and subsequent abortion): sick, anxious, infant, afraid, surgery, illness, forgotten. Thus, the woman unconsciously told Erickson the story of her past experience, which was later repressed and forgotten.

But Erickson went even further. He suggested that this process can be reversed. That is, to accentuate some especially important words with a gesture or intonation. And then the therapist will be able to send hidden unconscious messages to the client. Here's a theory.

The tagged message is transmitted to the client in the form of any message that is emotionally neutral and, as it were, has nothing to do with some topic, traumatic or painful for the client. However, this message contains embedded words that are marked in one way or another.

For example, a simplified verbal message for a client suffering from a headache: "Our mayor decided that this light paint would look very good if we paint the fence, especially when the weather is clear." In this case, we have an inserted message. The head is light, clear, which can be emphasized either by gestures, or intonation, or even in another font, if, let’s say, it is written.

Head clear

Thus, the client receives not one message, but two. The first is mind-oriented - it is perceived and understood by the client. The second message is addressed exclusively to the subconscious, and remains unnoticed for the attention (consciousness) of the client.

In psychotherapy, this provides invaluable opportunities - to communicate directly with the subconscious on a very deep level, without any trance, and while the client and therapist are talking sweetly about flowers or the advantages of some cars over others.

Therefore, insert-message therapy can take place absolutely anywhere, not just in the psychologist's office. And this amazing opportunity did not pass by the views of advertisers. If it works anywhere, it will work in advertising too.

And to tell the consciousness that "the Titkin cast iron batteries are very reliable", and tell the subconscious that "the Titkin cast iron batteries are very reliable", you must agree, is far from the same thing. I would like to go straight into the subconscious. And, preferably, without the knowledge of the client.

Therefore, today, opening any advertising directory, newspaper or magazine, you will find advertising texts with clear signs of a inserted message. It is realized by the method of color, font, or any other distinguishable by eye difference in certain words of the advertising message.

For instance? For example, here.

We producereliable Russian FURNITURE FOR YOUR OFFICE.

Chairs, armchairs, cabinet furniture. Supply of components

for the assembly of chairs. We carry out delivery and assembly.

Flexible system of discounts, low prices.

Collect all the words (in bold, italic, and all caps) and you get the second text. Quite meaningful.

Erickson, when the secretary complained of a headache, asked her to urgently print a letter. He dictated, she typed it. When the secretary finished typing the letter, her head no longer hurt.

Special words addressed to the subconscious were inserted into the text of the letter. "Brightens", "it will soon pass", "dissipates", "you feel good." And the head goes away. The real thing.

Does this trick work in advertising? No. And if you haven't figured out why yet, read this article again. Key words: Jung's patients (who were tested), woman with fear of pregnancy, Erickson's secretary with headache. Why does it work in the listed cases, but not in advertising? Any ideas?

Bomb for the subconscious

Remember the phone call tracking system?

If words like "bomb", "bin Laden" or "jihad" are sounded, the system will automatically start recording. The system has a set of words to which it responds. Something similar happens in Jung's test.

Each person has a set of "painful" words to which he subconsciously reacts. The only problem is that each person has a unique set of words. For a woman who is afraid of pregnancy, these words are "sick", "surgery", "illness", "baby" and "belly".

Assuming the ad contains at least one of these words, the woman's attention is likely to focus entirely on the ad. As was the case with the FBI agent who heard the word "bomb".

But turn this situation around the other way around, and see what we get. The FBI agent hears the word "belly" and the woman hears the word "jihad".

And then what? And nothing. The FBI agent will not hear this conversation, and the woman will not pay attention to this advertisement. Because these words are emotionally neutral for them.

The difference between a client of a psychotherapist and an advertising audience is that in the first case, there is always one client, and in the second case, there are always many of them. And everyone has their own list in the subconscious. One has a cat, another has a belly, a third has a poker. And this list will be equal to the volume of the largest explanatory dictionary in the world.

How many times will the recording device be triggered to record the conversation with the word "jihad"? Let's say once in a million conversations. And how many times the subconscious mind "works" on the word we produce (see the advertising example above) or chairs. Also about once in a million readers of this advertisement.

Does this make sense? It makes no sense.

It is necessary to write a good advertisement, and not "insert" messages, supposedly addressed to the subconscious. In psychotherapy, it works for a plus.

In advertising, no. Therefore, do not engage in nonsense, but use emphasis strictly for one thing: accentuate the most important argument, the most important idea. Only. How to do this, we will now find out.

Accents in the text and accent proportions

To get you started, I'll give you one Tide ad copy. It is in English, but for us, in this case, the content of the text is not at all important, but only its form. So:

Why do you suppose the manufacturer put a box of Tide in your new automatic?

… So your automatic will give you the cleanest clothes possible!

This text is taken from the 1950s Tide flyer. Now let's take another look at our Russian announcement from the beginning of the 21st century.

We producereliable Russian FURNITURE FOR YOUR OFFICE.

Chairs, armchairs, cabinet furniture. Supply of components

for the assembly of chairs. We carry out delivery and assembly.

Flexible system of discounts, low prices.

I'm not trying to tune you into a mystical mood, but count the number of words in each text.

There will be exactly 25 of them

Now look at the proportions of the accents. Tide has 25/1, and ours has 25/12, that is, almost every second word turns out to be a selection in the text, and besides, three types of accent are used: this is text in capital letters, italics and bold.

If Tyler ("Fight Club") started pasting the 25th frames into "Cinderella", based on this proportion (25/12), then it would no longer be so much a cartoon as a porn film.

I do not mean that the 25th frame exists, but that the number of enhancements in the text should not be excessive, otherwise they begin to "catch the eye" and annoy. And it becomes more difficult to read such a text. It acquires a semantic discontinuity, like a hairstyle after the work of a bad hairdresser: instead of a beautiful smoothness, we get "steps".

The normal proportions of accents for a homogeneous text are 25/3, well, the maximum is 25/5 (although this is already a bit too much). In the Russian announcement, which I quoted above, the normal course of events is to highlight the last two words (low prices), the ultimate one is to highlight the last sentence.

Ideal: accent one single word reliable.

There are no emotions and no value in the words "we produce", "furniture for your office", and objects of production (chairs, armchairs, cabinet furniture), so it is not worth highlighting them. published by econet.ru

Vit Tsenev