Hypnotic Hypermnesia for Subliminally Encoded Stimuli: State-Dependent Memory for “Unmonitored” Sensations

Abstract

In Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively, eighty-five subjects and sixty subjects viewed nine facial caricatures for 1/150 sec per face, nine for 1/100 sec per face, and nine for 1/10 sec per face. Recognition memory for three of the 1/150, three of the 1/100, and three of the 1/10 sec faces was tested before hypnosis; memory for nine more faces was tested during hypnosis; memory for the last nine faces was tested after hypnosis. Before hypnosis, the recognition probabilities for 1/150 sec faces and 1/100 sec faces were at chance levels, and the recognition probability for 1/10 sec faces was better than chance. During hypnosis, recognition memory for 1/150 sec faces was again at the chance level. However, hypnotic recognition of 1/100 sec faces was better than chance, and hypnotic recognition of 1/10 sec faces was no better than chance. Consistent both with cognitive-state monitoring theory and with state-dependent theories of memory, these results indicate that memory for subliminally perceived targets (l/100 sec faces) is facilitated by the hypnotic state.The present study tests the hypothesis that subliminal perception and hypnotic perception are similarly encoded "altered states of perception." Such an hypothesis follows from Kunzendorf's theory of cognitive-state monitoring and leads to predictions of hypnotic hypermnesia for subliminal stimuli [1] .According to cognitive-state monitoring theory, both the subliminal percept and the hypnotic percept are composed of "unmonitored" sensations: that is, 365

A Multivariate Study of Hypnotic Susceptibility

“…In other words, subjects are implicitly instructed to not interpret their imaginings as imaginings, but instead, to experience them and to behave towards them as if their contents were actually occurring [36,40] . Differences in the extent to which subjects succeed in generating suggestion relevant imagining without simultaneously attending to the fact that they are imagining may determine the extent to which they experience their imaginings as "real" (i.e., external) events [41,42].…”