To those of you who have viewed 'Inception', produced by Chris Nolan in 2010, this bit of brain science can ring a bell. A newly published research showed that simple subliminal messages can be planted into people's brains even if they are not aware of it.
Participants under the influence of an fMRI machine were given subconscious training to perceive red, even as they were exposed to black and white stripes over a number of days.
Those who were shown the experiments were asked to "try to somehow regulate your brain activity."
Participants were not given more explanations. Instead, they needed to write scores to show how they had performed. Subjects who thought about red got higher scores. Through 500 attempts, they perceived red when they were shown black and white stripes.
"Subjects developed an association between color and orientation without the subject's awareness," Takeo Watanabe, a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University, told Digital Trends. "This indicates that humans are capable of creating associative learning in early visual areas. Since we are successful in creating associative learning in such rigid areas, it is predicted that this method can create associative learning almost anywhere in the brain."
Experts concurred that people could use neuro-feedback training to enhance associative memories in the brains of people. These memories can continue for months.
Hence, such results can help in mind therapy. Professor Watanabe says: "This method may be applied to reduce or eliminate association of some specific cue and fear. For example, it [could be used to] reduce or eliminate bad memories developed in a battlefield. Our team has [also] recently found that people with high-functioning autism have some abnormal connectivities between different brain areas. Using our method, it may be possible to change some of the abnormal conductivities [to make them closer] to normal ones."
