Self-report and physiological responses to subliminal and supraliminal motion pictures

Six groups of volunteer students were shown a series of four 90-second pictures: and anxiety inducing, one neutral, and two control sequences with no information content, under both subliminal and supraliminal conditions. Self-report and physiological responses to each picture were recorded. Each group was shown the same set of eight motion pictures, in counterbalanced order, but the level of subliminal presentation was varied from completely subliminal in group 1 to a level at which all the subjects could recognize the material in group 6. The results showed that although the anxiety-provoking motion pictures produced significantly greater anxiety responses under supraliminal conditions, there were no significant differences between responses to the pictures at any level of subliminal exposure.