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# Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (PEN Literary Award Winner)

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Review: Under the Surface, Understanding the Entire Brain - I enjoy books with great stories mixed with mind-blowing, insightful scientific experiments, and how they affect our daily, ever-accelerating lives in this mysterious, expanding universe wherein even a second is sacred. I was curious to know more about "how our unconscious minds rule our behavior," so I read Mlodinow's new, well-written book, Subliminal. I enjoyed M's description of the intricacy and power of our brains, and became more convinced than ever that the balance between the conscious and unconscious in evolving human beings is worthy and necessary for survival and growth. As a teacher, I was interested to see if I could transform knowledge acquired from this reading into usable and practical strategies for improving y performance in the classroom. Kids learn both consciously and unconsciously. Our kids are always picking up vibes, good, bad and nuanced, and neutral. As M puts it, the "unconscious rules your behavior." What and how children learn make all the difference in the world. Perhaps if we teachers understood the emotional context, originating in the unconscious, from which the individual student is evolving, we'd adapt our teaching methods, schedule, learning environment, and study materials, with access to the Internet, smart boards, and the like. We'd adjust our attitude to view teaching as collaborative with the students. Students are now programmed to respond to connectivity, and so we are adapting teaching methods. M's book can be a stimulus for an explosion in flexibility and modernizing the world of U.S. education, or at the very least can initiate a meaningful discussion. Our environment and experience affects on many levels, much of which is on the unconscious level. Having read Feynman's Rainbow and The Grand Design, I knew M's book would be hard to put down. He's conversational and humorous, a popular writer who makes scientific concepts clearer for the lay person. Though some scholars may disagree, popular writing is its own art form and I think as a writer, M is both an artist and able craftsman. I recommend this book to those interested in forming a workable inquiry into a fascinating topic: the unconscious of the brain in play with the conscious brain. It's a fascinating read, inviting exploration and debate, a five star book for sure. Mlodinow serves up many experiments; I've picked two for consideration. Experiment one: Remarkable Power of the Brain M gives a masterful description of how an experiment is conducted. Using an fMRI (which measures the blood flow in the brain and maps it in three dimensions), data was collected from the brain to reconstruct an image of what a person is looking at, be it a bridge or a group of people singing, through reading the electromagnetic pictures of the brain. Without any reference to what the person is viewing,"the computer puts data from areas of the brain that respond to particular regions in a person's field of vision together with data from other parts of the brain that respond to different themes. A computer then sorted through a database of 6 million images and picked the one that best corresponded to those readings." Amazingly close matches. Understanding how the brain operates and who we are as human beings is called "social neuroscience." To what degree does our brain determine and create so called reality? Can we participate in the evolution of our brain, and therefore of our experience? Is compassion based on understanding the unconscious expressions of the individual to feel good about himself or herself? Experiment Two: Well-Designed but Convincing? M states the second experiment to be "the first scientific demonstration that the unconscious mind possesses knowledge that escapes the conscious mind." M writes: "Peirce found a way to translate his ideas about unconscious perception into a laboratory experiment by adapting a procedure that had first been carried out by E.H. Weber in 1834. Weber had placed a small weight of varying degrees, one at a time, at a spot on a subject's skin, in order to determine the minimum weight at which a difference could be detected by a subject. In the experiment performed by Peirce and his prize student, JJ, the subjects of the study (Pierce & JJ experimenting on each other) were given weights whose difference was just below the minimum detectable threshold. Although they could not consciously discriminate between the weights, they asked each other to try to identify the heavier weight anyway. Despite their lack of confidence, they in fact chose the correct object on more that 60 percent of the trials, significantly more than would have been expected by chance." Does this experiment prove unconscious knowledge is the difference or were both subjects just better guessers than average? And if a valid experiment, how many subjects should be tested? I e-mailed two scholarly friends, Terren & Gary, for their opinions. Terren responded, "I remember when that first experiment was publicized, with sensational headlines like 'scientists can read your mind.' It is great stuff, and lots more of that is no doubt headed our way. One of the best applications of that will be to try and determine where people are when they are comatose, or to find new ways for brain injury/stroke victims to communicate (this has already happened actually). However, the experiment as such does not really deal explicitly with the distinction between conscious and unconscious, so not sure why Mlodinow included it, although that might be clear if I read the book myself. The second experiment indeed does not prove anything. In science you never really prove any kind of positive result. You can prove that a theory is wrong, but you can't ever prove that a theory is right. That said, the experiment does provide some evidence that unconscious perceptions can influence conscious ones. The evidence provided isn't very strong, as the number of subjects (2) is tiny, and I'm not sure how many trials they did, but it's probably not enough to make the evidence very strong... but it's evidence nonetheless. Personally I find the idea that unconscious processes affect conscious processes to be totally uncontroversial. " Here is Gary's perceptive response: "'Guess' has two different meanings: predicting an event uninfluenced by any knowledge; predicting an event uninfluenced by any conscious knowledge. Good guessers -- i.e., those whose guesses do better than random -- can be explained only if we identify some unconscious factor that accounts for their outperforming randomnitude. Peirce plausibly points to an unconscious perception of the difference in weights. In other words, `good guessers' can't be an explanation of anything: it merely references the explanandum = the fact that the `guessing' follows a pattern that is not purely random. If we hold `proof' to the certitude of conceptual/deductive proof, then of course nothing empirical can be proven. Strictly speaking, hypotheses are only supported. This is why, as Terren said, they can only be refuted, since we are able to determine conceptual inconsistencies. " ******** M subtly draped subliminal messages in light print on the cover, back and spine of the book: "Pssst...Hey there. Yes, You, Sexy, Buy! Buy! Buy!." The unconscious possesses knowledge that escapes the conscious mind and is therefore a critical part of our evolutionary growth. What we might most passionately need may well reside in the unconscious. The unconscious is continually absorbing, learning below the surface. We might use the term "subconscious" is useful to explain subliminal messages on a movie screen or book cover since they are fairly accessible to consciousness with some attention in contrast with the deeper, less accessible unconscious. Or is it sufficient to consider any knowledge not immediately in present consciousness, no matter how shallow, unconscious? Terren wrote "For what it's worth, the term "subconscious" is not really used in academic circles as its meaning is too imprecise. It is too hard, in other words, to try and parse a difference between "subconscious" and "unconscious." To access hidden knowledge, to make the unconscious more conscious, is a very human endeavor says M. The brain is building memories, some conscious, some unconscious. Can we create rich memories? Do we call on deep memories to enrich us? Can we balance the bad ones? M gives examples of memories and experiences which fuel how we categorize things and stereotype people; how we favor our intimate circles; approach life from an unconscious emotional context; and humanly grow as we become aware of this process, the interplay between conscious and unconscious life. Leonard Mlodinow's Amazing Mom Mlodinow tells engrossing stories about his mother, who tragically lost family in the Holocaust. Having that memory so deep within her, at times when her son failed to call her, she would be unduly anxious that "something bad had happened." At one time, she was even convinced that her beloved son had been kidnapped. M's mom had to be reassured to feel safe and secure. I taught English in a refugee program. I will never forget Cambodian students and their families relating their horrific experiences under Pol Pot. I don't believe we ever completely survive an atrocity of this magnitude, even with forgiveness. M's Mom presently lives in a completely different environment, yet as author David Brooks might say, "the soulscape," not only the landscape, permeates us, ever deep and present. In America, Mom wasn't really threatened by the cowardly, brutal, and inhuman Nazis. But going through her experience has emotional reverberations to this day as M beautifully relates. How could such an agony and violation not? Emotional memories are real for all of us even if we don't know it. Mrs. Mlodinow, many blessings to her, is worthy of a book in her own right. What is more emotional than the significance of one's personal history? M is a generous writer, well worth reading for a general audience searching for a scientific introduction to both the unconscious and conscious brain, and how such knowledge relates to modern day living. As M says,"Some scientists believe that the need for social interaction was the driving force behind the evolution of superior human intelligence. Social cooperation and the social intelligence seem to have been crucial to our survival." Mlodinow's gift is that he is both funny and expert in his writing; his wake-up call is for us to pay attention to our minds, to let all the knowledge deep within our unconscious, as well as our conscious minds, conspire to make us better human beings.
Review: A Great Read! - The study of the unconscious is a realm of psychology that even the most educated and knowledgeable psychologists throughout history have had trouble deciphering and understanding. The human unconscious is captivating due to its hidden nature; access to the unconscious is not direct and not easily attainable. The book Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow is an informative book that explores the unconscious and the extent to which it influences our behavior on a daily basis. The unconscious is a controlling force in all of our thoughts, actions and beliefs, and heavily influences all of our decision-making. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior provides revealing information regarding the unconscious, which helps the reader gauge a deeper and more thorough understanding of the effect it has on our psychological activity. Leonard Mlodinow was born in Chicago, Illinois in the year 1954. During a semester off school, he discovered his love of physics. He then studied as a doctoral student at the University of California Berkley, and quickly became a professor at Caltech University. From there he published numerous theories in quantum physics. Intrigued by the human mind and how it functions, he has written many books, including The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives and The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking, which are just two of his New York Times best sellers. Mlodinow's background in physics makes his voyage into the world of the unconscious an interesting one, as he has made the transition from hard and fast equations to a world of more abstract and murky theories. This makes Subliminal a particularly engaging read because the reader feels as if he or she is discovering the unconscious world with Mlodinow, rather than be lectured at. The book has ten chapters, the first half of which deals with the research and history of the unconscious. The second half of the book applies this research and information to clearly illustrate the affects of the unconscious on daily scenarios and circumstances that humans encounter. Each chapter discusses and explores a specific function of the psychological domain, such as vision, and how it is influenced by the unconscious. I really enjoyed the organization of the book because it had a structure that started with black and white research that was then followed by real-life examples, which made it very easy to follow the material being presented. One example of the function of the unconscious is portrayed in Chapter 2, "Senses Plus Mind Equals Reality". Mlodinow recounts the story of the patient TN. TN had severe damage to the visual center of his brain (the visual cortex), which caused him to become completely blind. What intrigued scientists is that TN could navigate through a room full of obstacles successfully, despite being unable to see anything. His conscious aspect of sight was lost, but it was assumed that his unconscious still sensed the objects and sent messages to other parts of his brain to react. This phenomenon is now known as "blindsight," which is when the conscious visual system is non-functional, but the unconscious system that tells us to move out of the way when something is coming at us, or to step over something that is on the floor in front of us. This experiment proves that the unconscious is highly developed and adapts with challenging situations, such as the loss of one's sight. Even more importantly, it shows that the unconscious and conscious minds operate independently of one another, which was a huge milestone in the world of neuroscience. Mlodinow also discusses memory storage and brain energy consumption, citing a study that compared physical activity and brain consumption in which it was discovered that the brain does not change its energy output depending on the task. For example, let's think of our muscles during strenuous exercise. Our muscles consume 100 times more energy for intense activity than simply sitting on a chair. But that is not the situation when it comes to the brain. The unconscious mind is constantly at work, even when the conscious mind is at rest. Mlodinow's puts it this way: "Regardless of whether your conscious mind is idle or engaged, your unconscious mind is hard at work doing the mental equivalent of push-ups, squats, and wind sprints" (Mlodinow 187). We take for granted the fact that our unconscious mind is always working and analyzing. Mlodinow's consistent use of conclusive scientific evidence is illustrated in chapter one (The New Unconscious). The Pepsi Paradox is a term used to describe the fact that in blind taste tests, Pepsi consistently wins, yet people seem to prefer Coke when they know that they are drinking it. One cause of this disconnect is the effect of the brand name on their opinion, but when asked if this influenced their opinion, people replied, "No." He supports this claim using scientific research; for example, one study used brain-imaging techniques that discovered an area next to the orbitofrontal cortex called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). The VMPC is a part of the brain activated when we experience happiness due to a familiar brand name product. In another study, conducted In 2007, VMPC was studied. In this study, there were two different groups participating, one group was volunteers with VMPC damage and the other group consisted of volunteers with intact VMPC. The first situation was a blind test between Pepsi and Coke, and as expected, both groups favored Pepsi. Next, another test was done with the brands labeled. Here the group with the healthy VMPC preferred Coke while the group with the damaged VMPC still preferred Pepsi. What happened was not an explicit factor affecting their choice, it was an implicit factor, such as the brand that the unconscious acts on. Mlodinow states, "Our brains are not simply recording a taste or other experience, they are creating it" (Mlodinow 25). I felt this study was a great way to illustrate the role that the unconscious plays in complex decision-making; our unconscious prompts us to take into consideration factors other than taste, such as status or popularity, when making decisions. The study also rang true to me because it showed the way in which we as humans differ from animals, who would have simply chosen the more tasty option. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior provides new information regarding the unconscious. I enjoyed reading this book because it taught me about the different ways in which the unconscious controls our actions, thoughts and decisions. At first I thought Mlodinow was only going to explore and contrast the common theories relating to the unconscious that are discussed in most educational institutions, such as the Oedipus Complex. However, he takes a new, refreshing approach in exploring the more common day-to-day ways in which the unconscious presents itself in our lives, such as unconsciously turning right to head to work when you really want to turn left to go to the store. This is a must-read for anyone who has even the slightest interest in how our mind controls our behaviors by balancing the effects of the conscious and unconscious. The author eloquently provides evidence into each of his statements and justifies them with interesting research. I believe this book deserves a five star rating due to its ability to accurately shed light on the mysterious yet powerful psychological domain we call the unconscious.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #64,911 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #91 in Medical Cognitive Psychology #123 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions #177 in Cognitive Psychology (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,646) |
| Dimensions  | 5.14 x 0.82 x 8 inches |
| Edition  | Reprint |
| ISBN-10  | 0307472256 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0307472250 |
| Item Weight  | 2.31 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 272 pages |
| Publication date  | February 12, 2013 |
| Publisher  | Vintage |

## Images

![Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (PEN Literary Award Winner) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/713L56guOeL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Under the Surface, Understanding the Entire Brain
*by M***O on July 13, 2012*

I enjoy books with great stories mixed with mind-blowing, insightful scientific experiments, and how they affect our daily, ever-accelerating lives in this mysterious, expanding universe wherein even a second is sacred. I was curious to know more about "how our unconscious minds rule our behavior," so I read Mlodinow's new, well-written book, Subliminal. I enjoyed M's description of the intricacy and power of our brains, and became more convinced than ever that the balance between the conscious and unconscious in evolving human beings is worthy and necessary for survival and growth. As a teacher, I was interested to see if I could transform knowledge acquired from this reading into usable and practical strategies for improving y performance in the classroom. Kids learn both consciously and unconsciously. Our kids are always picking up vibes, good, bad and nuanced, and neutral. As M puts it, the "unconscious rules your behavior." What and how children learn make all the difference in the world. Perhaps if we teachers understood the emotional context, originating in the unconscious, from which the individual student is evolving, we'd adapt our teaching methods, schedule, learning environment, and study materials, with access to the Internet, smart boards, and the like. We'd adjust our attitude to view teaching as collaborative with the students. Students are now programmed to respond to connectivity, and so we are adapting teaching methods. M's book can be a stimulus for an explosion in flexibility and modernizing the world of U.S. education, or at the very least can initiate a meaningful discussion. Our environment and experience affects on many levels, much of which is on the unconscious level. Having read Feynman's Rainbow and The Grand Design, I knew M's book would be hard to put down. He's conversational and humorous, a popular writer who makes scientific concepts clearer for the lay person. Though some scholars may disagree, popular writing is its own art form and I think as a writer, M is both an artist and able craftsman. I recommend this book to those interested in forming a workable inquiry into a fascinating topic: the unconscious of the brain in play with the conscious brain. It's a fascinating read, inviting exploration and debate, a five star book for sure. Mlodinow serves up many experiments; I've picked two for consideration. Experiment one: Remarkable Power of the Brain M gives a masterful description of how an experiment is conducted. Using an fMRI (which measures the blood flow in the brain and maps it in three dimensions), data was collected from the brain to reconstruct an image of what a person is looking at, be it a bridge or a group of people singing, through reading the electromagnetic pictures of the brain. Without any reference to what the person is viewing,"the computer puts data from areas of the brain that respond to particular regions in a person's field of vision together with data from other parts of the brain that respond to different themes. A computer then sorted through a database of 6 million images and picked the one that best corresponded to those readings." Amazingly close matches. Understanding how the brain operates and who we are as human beings is called "social neuroscience." To what degree does our brain determine and create so called reality? Can we participate in the evolution of our brain, and therefore of our experience? Is compassion based on understanding the unconscious expressions of the individual to feel good about himself or herself? Experiment Two: Well-Designed but Convincing? M states the second experiment to be "the first scientific demonstration that the unconscious mind possesses knowledge that escapes the conscious mind." M writes: "Peirce found a way to translate his ideas about unconscious perception into a laboratory experiment by adapting a procedure that had first been carried out by E.H. Weber in 1834. Weber had placed a small weight of varying degrees, one at a time, at a spot on a subject's skin, in order to determine the minimum weight at which a difference could be detected by a subject. In the experiment performed by Peirce and his prize student, JJ, the subjects of the study (Pierce & JJ experimenting on each other) were given weights whose difference was just below the minimum detectable threshold. Although they could not consciously discriminate between the weights, they asked each other to try to identify the heavier weight anyway. Despite their lack of confidence, they in fact chose the correct object on more that 60 percent of the trials, significantly more than would have been expected by chance." Does this experiment prove unconscious knowledge is the difference or were both subjects just better guessers than average? And if a valid experiment, how many subjects should be tested? I e-mailed two scholarly friends, Terren & Gary, for their opinions. Terren responded, "I remember when that first experiment was publicized, with sensational headlines like 'scientists can read your mind.' It is great stuff, and lots more of that is no doubt headed our way. One of the best applications of that will be to try and determine where people are when they are comatose, or to find new ways for brain injury/stroke victims to communicate (this has already happened actually). However, the experiment as such does not really deal explicitly with the distinction between conscious and unconscious, so not sure why Mlodinow included it, although that might be clear if I read the book myself. The second experiment indeed does not prove anything. In science you never really prove any kind of positive result. You can prove that a theory is wrong, but you can't ever prove that a theory is right. That said, the experiment does provide some evidence that unconscious perceptions can influence conscious ones. The evidence provided isn't very strong, as the number of subjects (2) is tiny, and I'm not sure how many trials they did, but it's probably not enough to make the evidence very strong... but it's evidence nonetheless. Personally I find the idea that unconscious processes affect conscious processes to be totally uncontroversial. " Here is Gary's perceptive response: "'Guess' has two different meanings: predicting an event uninfluenced by any knowledge; predicting an event uninfluenced by any conscious knowledge. Good guessers -- i.e., those whose guesses do better than random -- can be explained only if we identify some unconscious factor that accounts for their outperforming randomnitude. Peirce plausibly points to an unconscious perception of the difference in weights. In other words, `good guessers' can't be an explanation of anything: it merely references the explanandum = the fact that the `guessing' follows a pattern that is not purely random. If we hold `proof' to the certitude of conceptual/deductive proof, then of course nothing empirical can be proven. Strictly speaking, hypotheses are only supported. This is why, as Terren said, they can only be refuted, since we are able to determine conceptual inconsistencies. " ******** M subtly draped subliminal messages in light print on the cover, back and spine of the book: "Pssst...Hey there. Yes, You, Sexy, Buy! Buy! Buy!." The unconscious possesses knowledge that escapes the conscious mind and is therefore a critical part of our evolutionary growth. What we might most passionately need may well reside in the unconscious. The unconscious is continually absorbing, learning below the surface. We might use the term "subconscious" is useful to explain subliminal messages on a movie screen or book cover since they are fairly accessible to consciousness with some attention in contrast with the deeper, less accessible unconscious. Or is it sufficient to consider any knowledge not immediately in present consciousness, no matter how shallow, unconscious? Terren wrote "For what it's worth, the term "subconscious" is not really used in academic circles as its meaning is too imprecise. It is too hard, in other words, to try and parse a difference between "subconscious" and "unconscious." To access hidden knowledge, to make the unconscious more conscious, is a very human endeavor says M. The brain is building memories, some conscious, some unconscious. Can we create rich memories? Do we call on deep memories to enrich us? Can we balance the bad ones? M gives examples of memories and experiences which fuel how we categorize things and stereotype people; how we favor our intimate circles; approach life from an unconscious emotional context; and humanly grow as we become aware of this process, the interplay between conscious and unconscious life. Leonard Mlodinow's Amazing Mom Mlodinow tells engrossing stories about his mother, who tragically lost family in the Holocaust. Having that memory so deep within her, at times when her son failed to call her, she would be unduly anxious that "something bad had happened." At one time, she was even convinced that her beloved son had been kidnapped. M's mom had to be reassured to feel safe and secure. I taught English in a refugee program. I will never forget Cambodian students and their families relating their horrific experiences under Pol Pot. I don't believe we ever completely survive an atrocity of this magnitude, even with forgiveness. M's Mom presently lives in a completely different environment, yet as author David Brooks might say, "the soulscape," not only the landscape, permeates us, ever deep and present. In America, Mom wasn't really threatened by the cowardly, brutal, and inhuman Nazis. But going through her experience has emotional reverberations to this day as M beautifully relates. How could such an agony and violation not? Emotional memories are real for all of us even if we don't know it. Mrs. Mlodinow, many blessings to her, is worthy of a book in her own right. What is more emotional than the significance of one's personal history? M is a generous writer, well worth reading for a general audience searching for a scientific introduction to both the unconscious and conscious brain, and how such knowledge relates to modern day living. As M says,"Some scientists believe that the need for social interaction was the driving force behind the evolution of superior human intelligence. Social cooperation and the social intelligence seem to have been crucial to our survival." Mlodinow's gift is that he is both funny and expert in his writing; his wake-up call is for us to pay attention to our minds, to let all the knowledge deep within our unconscious, as well as our conscious minds, conspire to make us better human beings.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Great Read!
*by S***M on December 13, 2012*

The study of the unconscious is a realm of psychology that even the most educated and knowledgeable psychologists throughout history have had trouble deciphering and understanding. The human unconscious is captivating due to its hidden nature; access to the unconscious is not direct and not easily attainable. The book Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow is an informative book that explores the unconscious and the extent to which it influences our behavior on a daily basis. The unconscious is a controlling force in all of our thoughts, actions and beliefs, and heavily influences all of our decision-making. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior provides revealing information regarding the unconscious, which helps the reader gauge a deeper and more thorough understanding of the effect it has on our psychological activity. Leonard Mlodinow was born in Chicago, Illinois in the year 1954. During a semester off school, he discovered his love of physics. He then studied as a doctoral student at the University of California Berkley, and quickly became a professor at Caltech University. From there he published numerous theories in quantum physics. Intrigued by the human mind and how it functions, he has written many books, including The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives and The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking, which are just two of his New York Times best sellers. Mlodinow's background in physics makes his voyage into the world of the unconscious an interesting one, as he has made the transition from hard and fast equations to a world of more abstract and murky theories. This makes Subliminal a particularly engaging read because the reader feels as if he or she is discovering the unconscious world with Mlodinow, rather than be lectured at. The book has ten chapters, the first half of which deals with the research and history of the unconscious. The second half of the book applies this research and information to clearly illustrate the affects of the unconscious on daily scenarios and circumstances that humans encounter. Each chapter discusses and explores a specific function of the psychological domain, such as vision, and how it is influenced by the unconscious. I really enjoyed the organization of the book because it had a structure that started with black and white research that was then followed by real-life examples, which made it very easy to follow the material being presented. One example of the function of the unconscious is portrayed in Chapter 2, "Senses Plus Mind Equals Reality". Mlodinow recounts the story of the patient TN. TN had severe damage to the visual center of his brain (the visual cortex), which caused him to become completely blind. What intrigued scientists is that TN could navigate through a room full of obstacles successfully, despite being unable to see anything. His conscious aspect of sight was lost, but it was assumed that his unconscious still sensed the objects and sent messages to other parts of his brain to react. This phenomenon is now known as "blindsight," which is when the conscious visual system is non-functional, but the unconscious system that tells us to move out of the way when something is coming at us, or to step over something that is on the floor in front of us. This experiment proves that the unconscious is highly developed and adapts with challenging situations, such as the loss of one's sight. Even more importantly, it shows that the unconscious and conscious minds operate independently of one another, which was a huge milestone in the world of neuroscience. Mlodinow also discusses memory storage and brain energy consumption, citing a study that compared physical activity and brain consumption in which it was discovered that the brain does not change its energy output depending on the task. For example, let's think of our muscles during strenuous exercise. Our muscles consume 100 times more energy for intense activity than simply sitting on a chair. But that is not the situation when it comes to the brain. The unconscious mind is constantly at work, even when the conscious mind is at rest. Mlodinow's puts it this way: "Regardless of whether your conscious mind is idle or engaged, your unconscious mind is hard at work doing the mental equivalent of push-ups, squats, and wind sprints" (Mlodinow 187). We take for granted the fact that our unconscious mind is always working and analyzing. Mlodinow's consistent use of conclusive scientific evidence is illustrated in chapter one (The New Unconscious). The Pepsi Paradox is a term used to describe the fact that in blind taste tests, Pepsi consistently wins, yet people seem to prefer Coke when they know that they are drinking it. One cause of this disconnect is the effect of the brand name on their opinion, but when asked if this influenced their opinion, people replied, "No." He supports this claim using scientific research; for example, one study used brain-imaging techniques that discovered an area next to the orbitofrontal cortex called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). The VMPC is a part of the brain activated when we experience happiness due to a familiar brand name product. In another study, conducted In 2007, VMPC was studied. In this study, there were two different groups participating, one group was volunteers with VMPC damage and the other group consisted of volunteers with intact VMPC. The first situation was a blind test between Pepsi and Coke, and as expected, both groups favored Pepsi. Next, another test was done with the brands labeled. Here the group with the healthy VMPC preferred Coke while the group with the damaged VMPC still preferred Pepsi. What happened was not an explicit factor affecting their choice, it was an implicit factor, such as the brand that the unconscious acts on. Mlodinow states, "Our brains are not simply recording a taste or other experience, they are creating it" (Mlodinow 25). I felt this study was a great way to illustrate the role that the unconscious plays in complex decision-making; our unconscious prompts us to take into consideration factors other than taste, such as status or popularity, when making decisions. The study also rang true to me because it showed the way in which we as humans differ from animals, who would have simply chosen the more tasty option. Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior provides new information regarding the unconscious. I enjoyed reading this book because it taught me about the different ways in which the unconscious controls our actions, thoughts and decisions. At first I thought Mlodinow was only going to explore and contrast the common theories relating to the unconscious that are discussed in most educational institutions, such as the Oedipus Complex. However, he takes a new, refreshing approach in exploring the more common day-to-day ways in which the unconscious presents itself in our lives, such as unconsciously turning right to head to work when you really want to turn left to go to the store. This is a must-read for anyone who has even the slightest interest in how our mind controls our behaviors by balancing the effects of the conscious and unconscious. The author eloquently provides evidence into each of his statements and justifies them with interesting research. I believe this book deserves a five star rating due to its ability to accurately shed light on the mysterious yet powerful psychological domain we call the unconscious.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review
*by B***R on July 9, 2020*

C est un livre que je recommande du debut a la fin. Certains ouvrages de neurosciences donnent l impression de copier-coller par rapport a des ouvrages anterieurs Celui ci est inspirant de bout en bout L intelligence de l auteur affleure a chaque page

## Frequently Bought Together

- Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (PEN Literary Award Winner)
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- The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

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*Last updated: 2026-03-05*