Happy 4th of July – where you will be bombarded with messages about the state of our nation. Let’s look at a different kind of message, though: You have probably heard periodic reports  of “secret messages” contained within pop music – often messages that can be revealed only by playing the music backwards. The messages are claimed to have content that is upsetting or offensive to many people – messages about Satan (thus today’s photographs of hellish creatures), or drug use, or sexual activity. If you take the time to do the quick exercise below exposing you to this music, you will be truly astonished (and laugh!). At least I was/did when I tried it out.

Visit this website: It lets you hear something that might or might not contain a hidden message.

http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking/stairway-to-heaven-backwards.html

First, select  the sound clips and play it forwards. Try at that point to guess what the hidden message is.

Then play the clip backwards. Now can you guess what the hidden message is?

Then, as the crucial step, click on the button to reveal the lyrics that are supposedly hidden in the backwards clip, and play the clip again. Now can you hear the hidden message?

So: Is the message really there, because you can hear it? Probably not.  You can only hear it when someone explicitly suggests to you what the message is which provides a powerful demonstration that your perception can be guided by expectations and knowledge – so that you can hear things with that guidance that you can’t hear at all otherwise.

Perception, then, is not just a relatively passive process where you are simply exposed to sounds, and they flow into your ears and you hear. Perception is much more active than that. You interpret. You fill in. You add. Of course, the ‘balance’ between the input and your activity shifts. The clearer the input, the more you rely on it. The LESS clear the input, the more you supplement. Likewise, the stronger your expectations and assumptions, the more you rely on them. The WEAKER your expectations and assumptions, the less you rely on them.

The bottom line, though, is NOT that perception is hopelessly and inevitably subjective. When the input is clear, you rely on the input! But, when the input isn’t clear, you do need to be alert to how much your expectations can bias what you see and hear.