The Judas Priest Trial and Hidden Persuasion : Subconscious Stimuli Can’t Make You Commit Suicide
While Judas Priest’s music, appearance and onstage antics may offend some people’s aesthetic sensibilities, they were not on trial for failing to measure up to some arbitrary standard of subliminal directives hidden in the “Stained Class” album.
What is subliminal perception, and what kinds of effects can subliminal stimuli produce?
Taken literally, subliminal means “below threshold.” However, there is no absolute cutoff point below which stimulation is imperceptible and above which it is always detected. Instead, a particular stimulus is sometimes detected and sometimes undetected.
For a given person, thresholds may vary from day to day or minute to minute. Thresholds also differ widely from person to person. Many studies of subliminal perception are flawed because investigators assumed that some particular stimulus would go undetected by all participants. In order to demonstrate true subliminal perception, care must be taken to ensure that the people involved cannot recognize the stimulus, even when they are trying to recognize it.
Can people be affected by stimuli of which they are unaware (i.e., below a threshold of awareness)? Yes. There is reliable research evidence demonstrating that stimulation below the level of conscious awareness can be shown to have measurable effects upon the viewer.
The crucial question, however, is whether the obtained effects justify the conclusion that actual behavior can be manipulated by such stimulation. The answer to this latter question is “No.”
The subliminal effects that are found in the laboratory are achieved under extraordinarily controlled and artificial conditions. The “effect” consists of a momentary activation of associations to single words that have been presented so quickly that the viewer has no subjective experience of having seen the word.
The effect has a duration of about half a second. These studies do not show, nor do they purport to show that below-threshold stimuli influence motives or behaviors. Moreover, 95% of the studies conducted in subliminal perception have used visual rather than auditory stimuli. There are no studies that have shown subliminal effects of an enduring or motivational nature.
Well-documented subliminal effects have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with directives or commands that compel people to act in some specified manner.
To propose that we can be affected in important ways by stimuli so weak that their mere presence is undetectable is an extraordinary claim that should not be accepted without clear, well-replicated evidence. So far, none exists, and no such evidence was offered at the trial.
In my opinion, subliminal stimuli are not capable of triggering suicidal influences, and therefore such stimuli played no role in the deaths of James Vance and Raymond Belknap. This conclusion is consistent with the court’s ruling.
