This experiment investigated (a) the differences in posthypnotic amnesic characteristics of Ss with high and low hypnotic susceptibility and (b) the extent of the amnesia. The experimental Ss were presented 6 words under hypnosis with instructions for amnesia. The simulation Ss pretended they were hypnotized and received the words with instructions for posthypnotic amnesia. The control Ss were given the words with instructions only to remember them. Recognition, recall, and associative tests, administered immediately after, assessed the amnesia. Posthypnotic amnesia impaired recall and recognition among the experimental Ss, but did not reduce the availability of the words as associative responses. The simulating Ss overplayed their amnesic role and also showed impaired performance on the associative tests.

4 Ss were individually run through 20 2-hr, sessions during which their primary task was to read a novel of their own choosing. At random intervals during the session a 1,000-cycle, j-sec. tone of low intensity occurred. At delays ranging from 0 to 10.S sec. following onset of the tone an alerting stimulus (reading lamp turned off) occurred. At the alerting stimulus S had been instructed to interrupt his reading and make a judgment as to whether the tone had occurred during the immediately preceding 10-15 sec. period. Sessions were run under a high and low condition of irrelevant noise. Detection of the signal was found to be a decay function of the delay of the alerting stimulus out to delays of 10.5 sec. 4 Ss were run in a 2nd experiment to determine whether the detection at 10.5 sec. delay represented the spontaneous rate for detection without an alerting stimulus. Significant memory at 10.5 sec. delay over the spontaneous detection rate was found. No effect of level of extraneous background noise was found. Implications for models of attention were considered.

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This study investigated the effects of cognitive tasks and verbalization instructions on heart period (HP) and skin conductance (SC). Two tasks (imagining common scenes and solving mental arithmetic puzzles) were used to test the hypothesis that conditions requiring attention to internal processess (rejection of the environment) are accompanied by cardiac acceleration and SC increases. Each type of task was administered under three instruction conditions: no verbalization, later verbalization and concurrent verbalization. It was found that the imagination task was associated with no significant changes in HP or SC unless the S was preparing to talk or actually talking. Mental arithmetic resulted in cardiac acceleration and SC increase even when no verbalization was required; however, this result is perhaps due to the covert verbalization inherent in the process of solving mental arithmetic problems. Both later and concurrent verbalization also produced significant increases in physiological activation during the arithmetic task. The findings of this study do not support the notion that conditions requiring rejection of the environment are associated with specific physiological changes. Rather the changes are generally attributable to the verbalization requirement. The effects of instructions requiring S to verbalize later are interpreted as due to either a motor set phenomenon or fear of being evaluated while talking.

This study investigated the effects of verbalization instructions and amount of visual attention on direction of change of heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC). Little evidence for directional fractionation of SC and HR was found with the conditions used. The variable of verbalization instructions produced a highly significant effect on HR and SC, and conditions of no‐verbalization produced a consistent but non‐significant decrement in HR. Other degrees of verbalization produced increments in HR. A visual attention variable produced no significant effect on either HR or SC, although means were arranged in order of increasing activation with increase in visual attention (stimulus complexity). Results were interpreted as being opposed to an intake‐rejection hypothesis such as has been proposed by Lacey to account for directional fractionation of response and for HR decrements. Instead, the authors suggest that the requirement to verbalize can produce important changes in degree and direction of autonomic activation.