What do YOU want them to think?
What do you want them to feel?
What do you want them to believe?
At least a dozen times, I’ve asked hundreds of people in an audience to look around a room and keep a mental log book of everything that is brown. I’ve then instructed them to remember what they see because their eyes will close in a minute and the log book will be closed.
“This is a very important experiment,” I opine.
Everyone knows where everything brown is because each of their brains have been instructed to focus and find all brown…and they have been told that this is an important task.
Their eyes are now all closed.
“Now, without opening your eyes, point to something green.”
No one can do it.
Those that point somewhere inevitably fail.
No doubt you may have participated in this fascinating experiment with me in the past as well.
You looked.
You looked hard and long.
Your brain captured all that it was told was important.
And then it was asked to locate any single object that was green. And nothing happened.
The Fascinating Human Brain
You and I can retain an unbelievable amount of information.
But in this case, we can’t remember where *anything* green might be…
We weren’t told to look for it…
Interesting?
Imagine your friend teaches a grade school class and little Billy is acting up in the back. Your friend tells a fellow teacher about the experience.
“The kid is always acting up. He’s probably ‘ADD’ and I wish he was on his way out. He’s driving me nuts.”
“Huh. I guess I’ve never seen it in his behavior. He can be talkative but he never misbehaves in my class and he’s a pretty sharp kid. Sometimes even helpful to the other students.” The other teacher is curious and confused.
Meanwhile your teacher friend looks at the fellow teacher as if he has lost his marbles.
Your friend will not likely ever see the student in any way other than he has and the other teacher will likely not change his view that the student is a pretty good kid.
Here’s what happens when the second teacher visits the first teacher’s class to observe in an experimental setting.
Weeks later, the teachers agree to exchange notes on the student again.
The result?
They’ve both retained their original opinion.
One one specific day of this experiment, the second teacher decides to sit in with your friend in his class. He sits at the back of the room and takes careful experimental notes on the young boys behavior noting anything that diverges from sitting and being quiet.
At the end of the day, the student had contributed four answers to questions for the class, spoke out of turn once, helped another student once, stopped an argument another time and laughed ridiculously loud once at a joke another student told.
My dialogue highlights the results of the experiment.
“Did you see him today? The kid was back at it again. He was smarting off and disrupting the class again.”
“Actually, he was pretty well behaved.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No. I recorded everything he did today.”
Your friend looked at the record and simply couldn’t believe they were talking about the same child.
Your friend saw what he expected while the actual record showed a very different picture of what really happened.
You remember what you expect to see.
And don’t worry, your friend isn’t crazy…. He also looked for everything that was brown and saw what was brown…. and nothing else.
As soon as you have an attitude, opinion or emotional connection to something or someone else, you immediately filter your awareness of that stimulus through those attitudes, opinions and emotions.
It’s how the brain operates. It’s how the brain must operate or it would see something new and have to start from scratch analyzing what “is” and what causes what attitudes, emotions and opinions.
That would be incredibly time consuming and in short order would cause the literal destruction of the human race.
Unfortunately as helpful as this “filtering” is in survival, it creates a very interesting life for each of us.
In general, we see what we anticipate seeing.
With rare exception, we don’t see what we don’t expect see.
We almost always see what we are told to look for…and not much else.
Recently scientists discovered something more remarkable and quite disturbing about what you and I see. Here’s the effect of ONE glass of wine on what you see.
They already see only what they are looking for, expecting or anticipating. If in your mind, you are great, they see great. They think you are wonderful? They will see wonderful.
But if they anticipate or are looking for negative behavior, they’ll find it as well…even if it isn’t real.
People who have had just one drink lose their ability to discriminate reality even more profoundly.
They REALLY see what they expect to see.
They really feel what they expect to feel.
They really see what they are told to see.
This is why marriages don’t last. Once one partner “sees” a behavior, without astute fine tuning, that behavior won’t disappear. Add a glass of wine and it gets even more certain that the behavior exists.
Here is one of my favorite pieces of research illustrating this perception.
After you read this section, I’ll give you some tips on how to utilize this information in a persuasive context on the internet and in face to face communication.
People who were given a simple visual task to watch a video of people passing a basketball back and forth, while mildly intoxicated, were twice as likely to have missed seeing the person in a gorilla suit than were people who were not under the influence of alcohol.
The study, appearing in The Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, is the first to show cognitive errors caused by “inattentional blindness” are more likely to occur under the influence of alcohol. This phenomenon occurs when important, but unexpected, objects appear in the visual field but are not detected when people are focused on another task, according to Seema Clifasefi, a postdoctoral psychology researcher at the University of Washington.
While the research, a pilot study, did not test driving aptitude, the study has strong implications for people operating motor vehicles after consuming alcohol, according to Clifasefi, who is affiliated with the UW’s Addictive Behaviors Research Center.
“Driving requires our full attention. We need to perceive information from a variety of sources when we are driving, but alcohol reduces our ability to multi-task. So we focus on one thing at the expense of everything else,” she said.
“Say you have been at a party and are driving home after having a couple of drinks. You don’t want to be stopped for speeding, so you keep eyeing the speedometer. Our research shows that you will miss other things going on around you, perhaps even a pedestrian trying to cross the street.”
In the study, 46 adults ranging in age from 21 to 35 were brought into a bar-like setting. Half of them were given drinks containing alcohol to bring their blood alcohol level up to 0.04 — half the legal level for being drunk in most states. The other half were given drinks containing no liquor.
After the volunteers had their blood alcohol levels measured by a breath test, they were taken to a computer monitor and asked to watch a 25-second film clip. The clip showed people playing with a ball and the volunteers were told to count the number of times the ball was passed from one person to another. In the middle of the clip a person dressed in a gorilla suit appeared, walked among the players, beat its chest and then walked away.
Results??? You wouldn’t have believed it if you didn’t read it here.
Afterward, the subjects were asked if they saw the gorilla.
Just 18 percent of the drinkers said they noticed the gorilla.
46 percent of the sober subjects indicated they saw the gorilla.
The research was built on older research without the involvement of alcohol. The results were just as impressive.
Give people one glass of wine and they simply don’t see that gorilla.
It SEEMS impossible, but what seems ridiculous is EXACTLY how our brain works in reality.
And it’s a bit unnerving when you think about it!
TWENTY FIVE SECONDS! That’s it. And in the middle of that 25 seconds, a gorilla shows up on the screen beating his chest and if you’ve had a drink, you didn’t see it. More than half of those who didn’t have a drink didn’t see the gorilla.
The power of focused attention via belief, anticipation and suggestion is absolutely shocking.
Applications:
The applications are far reaching and can be applied to almost any persuasive setting. The covert nature of the behavior is obvious.
When you are writing copy or making a sales presentation it is VERY IMPORTANT to encode your targeted information into your client’s awareness.
If you write for your website, make sure you tell people what to look for early on.
Like what? Like all the brown.
Make sure you have not led them into some other world where they are asked to see green.
They will see precisely what they come to anticipate.
“What we’re looking for are ways to get this project done without spending tons of money on waste like x, y, and z. Our competitor isn’t interested in that, and whatever you ultimately decide, those factors can’t be forgotten…”
That client will be listening for x, y and z…and ways to get the project done, so you better do something with those four pieces…because that’s what they are going to be filtering for…and what they will be hearing!
This works in all forms of communication.
Whatever you direct the person’s mind to is where they will be primed to pay attention to. Very much like a magician.
One worthwhile additional bonus:
If you say something negative about your competitor, your client WILL remember your competitor. It may not be good or bad…but they’ll remember …and if you haven’t put a greater degree of emotion on your own product…they won’t remember yours at all…. NEVER mention a competitor or anything about them, except in the context noted above..
One final suggestion: Write down the facts and key points from this article on a piece of paper and keep it on your desk for a week. Just one week. Refer to it every time you write copy or review your sales materials and presentation strategies.
Few covert persuasion techniques will ever yield the results this one will!
Til next time!
How to Persuade Using Covert Images, Stories & Messages
“LIVE” SEMINAR ON COVERT HYPNOSIS, SUBLIMINAL PERSUASION AND SUBTLE INFLUENCE
One “live” seminar with NOTHING edited out. Learn the secrets of covert hypnosis, subliminal persuasion (including HOW to make subliminal dvd’s!) and subtle forms of influence I’ve never talked about anywhere before.
Almost all of the information you experience in this all-day seminar is NEW. It’s not in any of my books. It’s not in the Covert Hypnosis CD program. It’s not in the Science of Influence.
And, where I didn’t know all the answers (like ALL the specifics in making a subliminal dvd) I brought in the subliminal video expert Mark Ryan. More on this in a minute (I know…it’s so cool…)
This DVD program is hot-off-the-presses and contains demonstrations of nonverbal and verbal communication that you haven’t seen or experienced before.
You will learn how to tell a story with Covert Hypnosis. This necessary skill set is what separates those who are good at subtle influence… and those that are truly masters. And I walk you through it, demo it and even have the class participate. You will be blown away. Promise.
Turn the DVD program off after just this DVD and you will have one heck of a return on your investment. (I promise, almost no one can tell a story well and it is stories that sell. Stories that market. Stories make money.)
- You’ll learn how to embed false memory in others in seconds.
- You’ll learn how to change memory.
- It’s subtle.
- It’s powerful.
Oh…and I’ll tell you why you want and need to know this…. 🙂
Next you’re going to find out the seemingly magical use of energy around you to create incredible comfort and trust or discomfort and fear. I would argue that it isn’t magic, that it’s science but no time for that. The skills are all transferable. You’ll see audience members interact with me and in minutes learn how to do this most important skill.
You’re going to find out how to shape beliefs with single words or images.
I’m going to show you how simply tearing a piece of paper can cause enormous pain inside of someone. And what you can learn from this!
You”ll find out the secrets that Mark Ryan and I use to create what may be the only commercially available subliminal DVD’s that work. We will both explain why and then….you’re going to find out why we are hesitating before releasing more.
- You are going to learn how to get from “no” to “yes.”
- You are going to watch me work.
- You are going to see the energy vibrate off of me and feel it enter your mind as you learn Covert Subliminal Influence.
- You will learn how to send covert verbal messages with far more power than you ever learned in NLP. (Yeah…really.)
*EVERYTHING* in this seminar has been scientifically tested. No guess work. No BS. No time wasters. It’s 100% proven technology.
And it’s 100% heart.
You will have fun and learn at the same time.
Unlike most programs you watch, I explain EVERYTHING I DO LIVE. Questions are taken and answered from the audience. It’s all here for you.
This program, newly released, comes on six DVD’s. It’s everything that those who attended got INCLUDING the manual which is rich in research and information on subliminal messaging.
You are one of the first to have this incredible program and I am proud that you will.
Covert Subliminal Influence
with Kevin Hogan, Psy.D.
6-DVD with complete Manual on CD
Order Covert Subliminal Influence Now or Learn More
