i beliv it more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message#Visual
but no offense
I take both with a grain of salt.
Wikipedia is editable by anyone with an Internet connection. This means to trust Wikipedia as a source, I must be willing to trust everyone with an Internet connection. If there is one person with an Internet connection whom I do not trust, there is a chance this untrustworthy person could be the source of the information. I trust less than a hundred specific people, and theoretically perhaps another few thousand experts, in this world of 6.6 billion. The chances that one of these trusted people is the source of that information is nil.
Snopes is run by a couple who provide all the information on their site. Their analyses are well considered, their sources are adequate and cited faithfully, and in every single case so far (I've read about 3/4 of the site over the years) they pass the common sense bullshit test.
I would edit the Wikipedia entry and screencap it for your edification, but you know that's how it works anyway so I won't bother. Between the two, it's pretty obvious I would trust Snopes over Wikipedia. The Wiki is a good source of general information and answering of quick questions, but if the information really matters to you at all you need to back it up with research elsewhere.
That said, I looked at each of the sources cited in the Wikipedia entry and found them to be solid. Additionally, there would be little financial reason for anyone to lie about this issue. Snopes covered just one failed test of subliminal advertising, and so if anything we can fault them for not researching enough.
I don't like that the Wikipedia article had just five lines of vague criticism from one source in a 13 page entry. It does mention Vicary's deceit, and that sleeping tapes failed to work under scientific testing conditions.
TL;DR - The Internet is a poor source for reliable information, unless nobody would have anything to gain through lying to you, but Wikipedia is a particularly poor sourceThe issue of whether subliminal messages are a secret way into our minds is pointless; you would make people hungry if you flashed a 10 second still picture of a juicy hamburger with the word BEEF on the bottom. And we typically ignore advertising unless we're actively thinking about it.
If anything, the subliminal visual argument supports that humans actually can perceive images faster than 30 fps.