#1 Interesting article, however, 'Recent reviews of research findings in subliminal perception have provided very little evidence that stimuli below observers� subjective thresholds influence motives, attitudes, beliefs, or choices (Moore 1988; 1991b; Pratkanis and Greenwald 1988; Greenwald, in press). In most studies, the stimuli do not consist of directives, commands, or imperatives, and there is no reliable evidence that subliminal stimuli have any pragmatic impact or effects on intentions. Studies that do purport to find such effects are either unreplicated or methodologically flawed in one or more ways. There is very little evidence for any perceptual processing at all (let alone any pragmatic consequences) when perceptual awareness is equated with an objective threshold.'
Probably it is better not to have real subliminal but faked subliminal messages in a game i.e. use a very short burst of an image that can be seen to create an impression. Not really subliminal but can give a creepy feeling.
Recent neuroscience mapping suggests that the perception and reaction to danger is hard coded, that is to say, that it is not consciously perceived, the body simply reacts, this is because the speed of thought is not actually fast, in fact it is rather slow, but it travels short distances, even so, in a life threatening situation the body takes over and will react before the conscious mind registers it. This effect can be consciously dampened of course, nevertheless it is impossible to make use of a hard coded reaction in a video game as the danger is not actually present.
An understanding of protective colouration is also of use as well as researching the psychology of art. It is relatively easy to create disturbing images when one understands the effect of the Golden Ratio on the mind and the behaviour of every living creature. There is a great deal of use to game designers in studying these aspects of psychology.

Still, good article, and good idea to explore this sort of stuff.

#2 @JED
Thanks a lot for your feedback, I've passed it on to the author and she'll be in touch as soon as she have the time!
I'm not exactly an expert in the field of the psychology, to be honest I don't know anything about it except personal speculations so I will try not to discuss the contents of the article, but I'd like to know what you think of the article in general? Would you be interested in reading more of these kinds of "explorative" articles?

#3 Hello!

I'm sorry I do not have the time to answer you right now :-)
I'm in the middle of a lager paper at the university, but I will look into your feedback in June and read more about the subject, before I can respond properly.

But thank you so much for reading the article and taking the time to answer it!

- Helene