Subliminal Messages

In the fall of 1982 we were contacted by a local radio announcer for information about a phenomenon he referred to as “backmasking.” However, his question did not concern the well-studied phenomenon of visual persistence (see DiLollo, 1980; Sakitt, 1976); the announcer wanted to know what were the effects on a listener of messages that allegedly had been recorded backward into popular rock music. He informed us that when such recordings are played in the normal, forward fashion, the messages are not consciously perceived; however, played backward, intelligible messages can be heard. His concern was not that listeners would play their records backward and thereby “hear” the messages but rather that the messages would be perceived unconsciously by the listener when the recording was played forward. He informed us that those who advanced this belief also claimed that the messages had an evil content and that, upon hearing them, the youthful listener was led down a path of loose morality and behavioral aberration. Depending upon the degree of religious belief held by the proponents of these views, the backward messages are, at the least, thought to have been technologically engineered by the rock groups themselves or, at the worst, inserted by Satan.