Optimus priming

Full credit for my current mini adventure goes to Marc Hogan and his thread:

http://www.nlpconnections.com/forum/14237-derren-brown-how-psychic-spy.html

He reminded me of "priming" which has a rather large research base. My intention for posting this is to explore whether this is a useful metaphor to think about when considering influence at an unconscious level. Unconscious influence from the environment and the various forms of communication we engage in. If I can be excused there will more than likely be some confused codswallop in there as well but I will do my best...

If you have the time these next two experiences will be able to demonstrate priming and some of the processing behaviour of the unconscious...

1) This task needs to be done in your head only:
Take 1000 and add 40 to it.
Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10

5000 right? Wrong! Check it on a calculator

2) This next one needs your first immediate answer. It needs an instant immediate answer because that is your unconscious response and not the one that starts analysing. Jot your answer down for each answer


Think of:
1)A Fruit
2)A Vegetable
3)A Weapon
4)A soft drink
5)A pet
6)A liquid
7)A jewel
8)A form of transport
9)A salad ingredient
10) A flower

Got them down?








Did you get
1) Apple
2) Carrot
3) Gun
4) Coke
5) Dog
6) Water
7) Ruby
8) Car
9) Lettuce
10) Rose

I can pretty much guarantee an 80% success rate. These are the strongest held unconscious associations. It came from research on free association. The cue word such as "fruit" primes the unconscious response of "apple". The first task primes your unconscious for the wrong answer. I initially thought it was a way of tricking the calculator but quickly realised how daft that was and then thought it is numerical priming. Without a calculator I would have had a firmly held belief that indeed was the answer. A direct impact upon my future experience. A small and trivial impact but an impact.
You can see the research from the link that was printed in “naked mentalism” by Jon Thompson here:

http://w3.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/

One definition of priming: Priming refers to a increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience. Because priming it believed to occur outside of conscious awareness, it is different from memory that relies on the direct retrieval of information. Direct retrieval utilizes explicit memory, while priming relies on implicit memory. Research has also shown that the affects of priming can impact the decision-making process (Jacoby, 1983)

I imagine phonological ambiguity and embedded commands prime the unconscious to learn what the practitioner intended it to learn. The metaphors Ericsonian hypnosis uses primes the unconscious to learn what the practitioner intended it to learn. I remember a post by Chris Morris on NLP connections saying Bandler himself and his life where like a “living metaphor”. I didn’t really get it but from a priming metaphor the unconscious influence that extends from it is profound. Metaphors prime the unconscious. Our language is made of almost entirely metaphoric words which immediately prime our unconscious. Any new science concept is as only as good as its current metaphor. The sheer dominance of priming truncates scientists thinking because it narrows resources from the unconscious leading to focus on particular aspects for example a stimulus-response metaphor. The computational metaphor allowed for a kind of anti – priming because it allowed someone’s unconscious as wide a range of resources as possible rather than focusing on particular aspects. It avoids all of that which Bateson was so critical of concerning the so - called behavioural sciences. It is as this point I wonder how much priming we are exposed to that leads to a cornucopia of unconscious responses leading to beliefs/behaviours/states that would not have occurred otherwise. I remember some research posted on NLP connections by John Baker here:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2009/jostmann.cfm


Do we “borrow” all of our metaphors from the outside world to allow us to communicate our ideas and in turn the world around us concerning these metaphors influence our unconscious directly. Or, has the environment had a direct impact on the evolution of how we think because we have had to use the real world in order to think. There is no logical reason why the “weight” of a clipboard would influence a person’s perception of a discussion. An exam is “hard” because that is one of the best metaphorical descriptions we can have to communicate our experience.
The environment appears to impact on us in a hugely metaphorical way. Studies like the ones presented in this BBC repost demonstrate further the effect of the environment on peoples unconscious perceptions:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7688315.stm

There is even an idea developing that can explain rising obesity levels through the priming metaphor:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-effect-of-our-surroundings-on-body-weight&page=2

Fast food companies know what they are doing and prime people to consume more. The supermarket knows that pumping out the smell of baked bread instantly primes your unconscious. Subway appear to like a smell more similar to that of the wind breaking variety but I am sure they intend the same thing. All of these stimuli prime the unconscious and can lead to beliefs, behaviours, states and anything else we can experience that simply would not have occurred otherwise.
I am beginning to wonder now whether New code thinking is one of only two disciplines that directly seek to avoid any priming either way in the change relationship. Maybe this kind of thinking and doing allows a persons full unconscious to be available without any deliberate or otherwise priming from the practitioner which would influence it in the ways the practitioner wants and possibly ways they do not want. A pure "know nothing" state freeing someone from the undesirable effects of priming.
The other practice which also and arguably even more so – clean language goes to great lengths to avoid any priming of the unconscious. Although priming does occur in the respect that the practitioner chooses which part of the metaphor to expand. Both of these approaches achieve the highest form of respect for a persons ecology. I will exit my current mini adventure with a quote from Bateson:


"Logic is a very elegant tool," he [Gregory Bateson] said, "and we've got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habit formation" -- his voice trailed off, and he added after a pause, looking out over the ocean -- "you know, to all those pretty things" -- and now, looking straight at me [Capra] -- "logic won't quite do ... because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes." ...

He stopped again, and at that moment I suddenly had an insight, making a connection to something I had been interested in for a long time. I got very excited and said with a provocative smile: "Heraclitus knew that! ... And so did Lao Tzu."

"Yes, indeed; and so do the trees over there. Logic won't do for them."

"So what do they use instead?"

"Metaphor."

"Metaphor?"

"Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive."

Credit to: http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/Quotes.html#Gregory%20Bateson