Today’s topic is pretty damn fascinating. It deserves much more than a blog post to be discussed, but it’s not going to get what it deserves, because you’ll hurt your eyes looking at the screen for too long. Our topic, unconscious processing, is the Mack-Daddy (capital M, capital D) of getting shit done. Apparently, around 95% of all information-processing is carried out unconsciously, so whatever you’re focusing on now – a duck, the Taj Mahal, the colour Red – is quite insignificant compared to every other thought process that’s keeping you alive and in order (unless maybe you were thinking of the duck; ducks are never insignificant). Try concentrating on each breath you take…now think about the fact that you can’t keep your tongue in a comfortable position inside your mouth, no matter where you move it. Unconscious just became conscious, how do you like them apples?!
Okay, consciousness is pretty amazing as well and I thoroughly enjoy having it, but it does have its shortfalls. These shortfalls are great for making examples of how our conscious perception differs from what’s going on in reality. Check out the video below, it’ll occupy your consciousness enough to give you some entertainment. Many of you may have seen it already, but you have to admit that it’s good!
Or, how about
these flashing lights below? Stare at the centre...the lights didn’t just disappear. I’m standing right
behind you and I can see them perfectly.
Once your
consciousness is occupied, it performs a ‘perceptual filling-in’ to frame a
context for the rest of the unimportant stuff it doesn’t really care about.
Imagine you were looking at a wall with hundreds of identical tiles, with your
eyes fixated on one particular tile. You’re only focussing on one point, but
you have the feeling that you can see plenty of other tiles around that point.
However, you don’t really see the detail of the surrounding tiles, your brain
just ‘fills in’ the missing information to fit the context of the situation,
giving you the feeling that you are indeed focussing on a large portion of the
wall. I guarantee that if one of the tiles in your peripheral vision gradually
changed colour you wouldn’t even notice. I also guarantee that you hate when
people say that they guarantee something. I guarantee a lot of stuff.
I’ve given
consciousness a hard time, but that doesn’t mean to say that unconscious
processing is perfect either. As useful as unconscious processing is, one of
the main problems of it is its lack of control (or, perceived control, I should
say. Consciousness is also an illusion of control in a way, but it’s best if
you read about that for another day). Sometimes you get that feeling where you
know or realise something, but have no idea why – some might call it intuition.
Women are brilliant body language readers, but usually aren’t even aware of
their superior skills. You may have heard of a ‘woman’s intuition’ before –
they’re like human lie detectors, everyone needs to be careful around them.
Just don’t think any thoughts and you should be fine. Another example of this
intuition (which, in this case, is just a fancy word for unconscious
processing) occurs in people who suffer from Blindsight. These people get no
visuals in certain areas of their sight, but are able to guess pictures of
different shapes that are placed in front of them with remarkable accuracy,
thanks to a certain unconscious awareness. So, next time, trust your intuition,
you might actually have a reason for feeling rather than thinking.
| Intuition – not to be confused with complete guesswork, or that feeling that this week's lottery winner will be you |
And what about
unconscious processing in advertising? Well, as scary as they sound, research
has repeatedly proven that subliminal advertising doesn’t work. Apart from the
subliminal schlong scene in Fight Club. That worked. But still, messages don’t
have to be subliminal to be processed unconsciously. An experiment was carried out where participants who formed word associations with words like
‘grey’, ‘wrinkle’, and ‘Florida’ were seen walking at a slower pace than the
other participants who chose words with less of an ‘old’ connotation. Or, in a similar experiment, participants who were exposed to words such as ‘rude’ or
‘impolite’ in word associations exhibited less patience to the researcher’s
assistant upon completing the experiment. Brand placements are often processed
unconsciously…in a way, that sounds quite pervasive. Maybe, but I think I’d
still rather see ten TV brand placements in an uninterrupted show than see no
brand placements with an ad break interrupting my viewing pleasure.
Next time you go
to the supermarket, set yourself the challenge of putting more conscious effort
into every single item you buy. Think to yourself, why I am buying this brand
over the other? It might help you to realise if you’re paying extra cash for quality
or for a shiny wrapper.
