Wilson Bryan Key

Key obtained his doctorate in communications from the University of Denver and taught journalism for a short period of time at the University of Western Ontario. He was a colleague and friend of Marshall McLuhan.

A US court case in 1990 accused the English Heavy Metal Band Judas Priest of causing suicide through subliminal messaging. Key advised the plaintiff's lawyer to hire Bill Nickloff, an audio engineer, to find the subliminal messaging.^[1] The judge found that the defendant was not responsible for the deaths.^[2]

Key died following complications resulting from surgery. He is interred at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Nevada.^{[citation needed]}

His results and conclusions have been challenged, in books including the following:

• Boese, Alex (2006). Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S.. Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 0156030837.
• Moore, Timothy E. (Spring 1992). "Subliminal Perception: Facts and Fallacies". Skeptical Inquirer. 16 (3): 273–281. Reprinted in Encounters with the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, 1998, 253–263. ISBN 157392203X
• Pratkanis, Anthony R. (Spring 1992). "Myths of Subliminal Persuasion: The Cargo-cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion". Skeptical Inquirer. 16 (3): 260–272. Reprinted in Encounters with the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, 1998, 240–252. ISBN 157392203X

• Programming the Nation?