The capability of backmasking to
subconsciously
influence listeners is
questionable at the very best, but as a result of
sensationalist journalism and the tendency of people to believe the
most appealing and
interesting option presented to them, it is considered
psychological fact by a misguided portion of the population. In fact, most forms of
subliminal messaging have failed to hold up in any real way in the lab, and backmasking appears to be one of the most
dubious of the bunch.
Much of the foundation behind the
myth that its subliminal backmasking comes from the
religious sector, particularly
fundamentalist christian groups, who make claims that backmasking in today's "
rock and roll" music is designed to
influence and force
satanic beliefs and opinions upon the youth of
America. This claim was particularly relevant in the court case concerning
Judas Priest, which if nothing else, could serve as a warning to future generations about the role of
courtroom demagogs in deciding the amount of validity lended to even the most outlandish of
accusations.
In a
psychology course, I once conducted the following simple
experimental
study on 200 students:
Two
recordings were prepared, recording A, which is the
control tape, and B, the
experimental tape.
Recording A (control) was a short
instrumental exerpt of no pertinence to the experiment, but softly behind it was the
immortal mantra "
All your base are belong to us," in reverse. This, too, had no pertinence to the experiment, hence its being the control message. The student was then
instructed that the experiment conductor was holding a small
ball in his or her hand, and that the student should attempt to randomly
guess the
color of the ball.
Recording B (experimental) was the same instrumental exerpt, but rather than "All your base," the 100 students heard "The ball is
purple." Under the supposed circumtances (in another
universe, that is, where backmasking would work...) the students would have been influenced to some degree to respond with the answer purple, when
prompted for the color of the
imaginary ball.
In fact, the control group responded slightly more often with purple than did the experimental group. That, of course, is a
statistical abnormality most probably resulting from a limited subject sample, but it does do something to reinforce the
non-entity of backmasking, at least as it would have pertained to the experiment.