Okay, one last post from me on this subject.... An academic text was published in the late 70s or early 80s on this, the title was _Subliminal Stimulation_ if I remember correctly. Most decent university psych libraries should have a copy. I don't recall the author or editor's name, though I did read it while an undergrad. The gist of it was that there *is* an effect but it's *fairly small* in terms of the subject population. As I said before, any induction procedure will work for some segment of the population, so it's not surprising. I have to put myself in the middle on this arguement. On one hand I think Key went overboard; it would seem that what happened was he spent his professional life doing advertising and then someone pointed out something that was going on, and he over-reacted in the manner of anyone who suddenly finds he's unwittingly been violating his own morals. I would suggest that some of the stuff he's trying to point to is valid, but a lot of it is improbable to the point where I think a clinically trained observer might see signs of paranoia. Now on the other hand, I've found too many really blatant examples of psychologically devious advertising techniques to write this stuff off entirely. The point isn't whether Key is a great whistle-blower or a raving loonie; it isn't even whether there are forests of hidden genitals growing in ad illustrations... the point is whether the effect of saturation in psychologically-loaded high-production media aimed toward promoting passive consumerism is healthy for a culture or for the free will and dignity of its members. And I would say it certainly is not. -gg