Curt Merrill: July 2006 Archives

Oh science, you are an elusive creature. I thought that Mr. Parsons' had prepared me for your wily ways, but I did in fact drop that class half way into the semester, so I suppose the blame is a burden I must carry on my own shoulders. I shake my fist at the shadow of my past self and cry out, "Science is actually fun!" But he doesn't listen, he is too busy getting Curt to skip his art class so we can go drive around.

Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the Urban Honking labs, which exist more as a state of mind than an actual underground lair (though we do have lab coats), we have developed a few theories about subliminal programming. First, let's recap the experiment:

Better Bowling Through Listening, March 15, 2006
a joint research venture between North laboratories and Make It Happen labs, a division of Urban Honking

While research has shown subliminal suggestion to have little or no effect, we believed that the subliminal tape would give a slight increase in performance if for no other reason than you are at least thinking about bowling more often.

So we bowled. A lot. Each week we bowled three games. This new hobby led to the start of the Internet Bowling League, as well as an aggravated injury to my middle bowling finger. After a few weeks Curt started listening to the tape and I kept right on bowling.

Curt: "Listening to the tape was fun at first, mostly for the novelty of it. But as the days went on, it became harder and harder. I'm rarely in a place where I can listen to music for a continuous hour. I had to consciously block out an hour to listen to the tape most days, which was just a hassle. Also, the tape got really dull after listening to it every day and by the end of the second week, I actively dreaded pressing play."

The results are startling.

As you can see on this graph Curt created, the effects of the subliminal tape seem to have no noticeable effect on Curt's bowling (in red).

Curt: "I didn't expect to dramatically improve after listening to the tape, but I did expect to at least become more consistent, neither happened."

While many of you may be thinking, "This is stupid," and are waiting for ZeFrank to post his next video, we didn't stop there, because science is like a freight train with a drunk conductor and will push on until all the burning questions are answered. And this isn't answering any questions to us. This is just creating more:

1. Where did this subliminal tape come from?

2. What is this subliminal tape really doing?
The purpose of a subliminal tape is to re-program the mind. While I'm sure there is money in re-conditioning the mind to be a better bowler, it seems like a perfect opportunity for an evil scheme (Manchurian Candidate anyone?). Curt will be observed for any erratic behavior.

3. Does the MP3 format harm the effects of a subliminal tape?
A number of techniques are employed during MP3 compression to determine which portions of the audio can be discarded. MP3 audio can be compressed with different bit rates, providing a range of tradeoffs between data size and sound quality. Perhaps the elements that are deleted are essential to the effect of subliminal programming.

4. Did Curt's bad attitude toward the tape affect his ability to receive the messages?

5. Will the cute girl at the coffee shop go out with Curt?

6. Is Curt immune to subliminal suggestion?

In order to answer these, and other, questions, a more extensive study is required. To that end, we are now issuing a request for proposals. We seek a study designed to definitively measure the effect of subliminal suggestion on bowling skill as well as proposals to answer any of our followup questions.

Experiment related photos available on our Flickr pages.