University College London researchers have found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain’s attention on a subconscious level.

Using fMRI to detect the impact on brain activity in the primary visual cortex, they found subjects’ brains did respond to the object even when they were not conscious of having seen it.

“These findings point to the sort of impact that subliminal advertising may have on the brain,” said Dr. Bahador Bahrami, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the UCL Department of Psychology. “What our study doesn’t address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product.”