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Editor’s Notes: Tutors, especially those who specialize in helping students become self-directed learners, have, by nature of their discipline, an acute interest in any technique that can "help the student help himself". Particularly, as it pertains to brain research, subliminal suggestion is re-emerging as a necessary and viable channel with which tutors can tap into their students latent potential. Here, Mitchell Weisburgh, explores some of the uses of subliminal theory, while considering it’s overall application in the field of education.
This issue of PILOTed is about how the mind works in mysterious ways.
The first example comes from a 6 minute video on subliminal messages. It is well worth spending the time to look at the video,
before reading on. In fact, the other Derren Brown videos are fascinating as well, for example, How to take someone’s wallet, just by asking.
As a summary of the subliminal messages video, two advertising executives, on their way to a meeting, were exposed to the entrance to a zoo, various images of angel’s wings and harps, and a picture of a bear. They were then asked to develop an ad campaign, and lo and behold, the campaign incorporated all of the images that they’d seen on the way to the meeting.
It is tremendously powerful. If you can scaffold the right images into a student’s experience, can you better prepare the student to learn? How could this be incorporated into learning materials?