Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992 TAG: 9201190128
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium
FINALLY, POSITIVE TV FEEDBACK
A businessman here has created a little black box that he says will make watching television good for you.The businessman, William D. Richards, explained that the box he co-invented plugs into a TV set and causes motivational messages like "I am strong" or "I matter" to flash on the screen while viewers watch their normal favorite programs.
The messages are too brief - 1/60th of a second - to be noticed by the viewer. They flash about once a second and are supposed to be absorbed by the subconscious, so the viewer continuously improves without even knowing it, hour after hour, Richards says.
Audio and video tapes with subliminal motivational messages are a $50 million-a-year business. But the black box, called MindsEye, apparently is the first device to continually flash messages on a television screen while regular programs are being watched. It also works while a VCR movie is shown or a computer game is being played.
So far there are 15 different sets of messages, including ones for quitting smoking, improving your golf game, building your self-esteem or losing weight.
While golfers are watching cartoons or situation comedies, messages like "Golf relaxes me," "My approach is serene," and "I love to putt" will slip unnoticed into their minds, Richards says.
The program for building self-esteem tells the viewer, "I am good," "I love me," "People respect me," and so on.
The black box, part of MindsEye Educational Systems, is about 5 inches square and a couple of inches high. It sells for $348.95. There is a different cartridge for each motivational program, and inside each cartridge is a computer memory chip containing about two-dozen messages that repeat as long as the TV is turned on. Each cartridge costs $49.95.
MindsEye works with any TV connected to a VCR or cable system, said Richards. He is executive vice president of American Family Marketing International, Ltd., which has been marketing the product nationally for two months through sales representatives. It is not sold in stores, he said.
Adding the motivational messages to television, Richards said, is like adding fruit to non-nutritional breakfast foods.
But do subliminal messages work?
"No," said Frederick G. Freeman, professor of psychology at Old Dominion University. `People can perceive these stimuli, but there's no evidence there is any long-term effect on motivation."
"Technically and theoretically," said Ian Wickram, professor of psychiatry at Eastern Virginia Medical School, "it is possible to influence behavior and preferences with this technique, called pre-conscious priming."
However, he said, "all the studies are clear the duration of the effect is very brief," too brief for subliminal messages to be useful.
George E. Anders on of Wayne, Penn., MindsEye's co-inventor, said the device would not work for everyone, but said one study showed that 25 people watching the weight-loss messages lost an average of 12 pounds over three months while 25 other people who thought they were watching the same messages but weren't lost no weight at all.
About 400 MindsEyes have been sold in the past two months, Richards said.