ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the significance of subliminal perception for cognition and decision making: only 5% of humans’ cognitive functions are said to be conscious, with the remaining 95% escaping awareness. The chapter tracks research on subliminal perception and the use of “hidden persuaders” in motivational research and marketing before laws were adopted that prohibited subliminal advertising in Europe. It equally illustrates the difficulty in drawing up absolute thresholds for subliminal perception for each individual sense alone, and advocates a joint “synaesthetic” study of the senses in line with the multisensory nature of the perception of reality and the tendency of AI to mimic the human mind.
