Well, we're not actually talking about information below the threshold of perception. We're talking about the ability to store and act on information when the usual long-term-memory processes have been interrupted. And they had to distract in order for the person to fail to confirm their storage and use.

But heck, this isn't much different than the standard advice given to folks on a final exam where they've been exposed consciously to the same data for weeks on end and tested to establish awareness. We can't seem to remember everything. But what we forget we know, and what we've truly forgotten are not the same thing. A guess is sometimes an "educated guess."

Of course the magical claims for subliminals were that;

A ) Because you don't know you know, they can hip-mo-tyze you into turning Gay. "I'd rather fight than switch." ⚠️ ↗ ;p

and

B ) You can't perceive them, nor will other 'fess up to their use of magical mind-control techniques; so its up to those who can "cloud read" to inform the duped And no, its never just a cloud; when I see a lamb in the sky its really a lamb, its not me."

There's really not much difference in claiming "this whisky ad shows me a penis you can't see or confirm" and the guy with the tinfoil hat making claims about RFK beaming info into his brain.

But after the hooplah some advertisers bought into it. Long enough to establish that consumer preference isn't shaped by what is neither perceived nor retrieved.

At least in the study about retrieval the experimenters knew what data was seeded and what a conscious response looks like; they simply proved that you don't have to know you know.

Dante