Memory Liabilities Associated with Hypnosis: Does Low Hypnotizability Confer Immunity?

• Published in: International journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis 1996-10, Vol.44 (4), p.354-369
• Main Authors: Orne, Emily Carota, Whitehouse, Wayne G., Dinges, David F., Orne, Martin T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Hypnosis; Learning. Memory; Male; Memory; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Retrospective Studies
• ISSN: 0020-7144; 1744-5183
• DOI: 10.1080/00207149608416098

Retrospective analyses of data from the authors' program of research on hypnosis and memory are presented, with special emphasis on effects observed among low hypnotizable individuals. In Experiment 1, partiapants completed seven forced-mall trials in an attempt to remember a series of pictures that had been shown 1 week earlier. For half the participants, the middle five trials were carried out using hypnotic procedures; the remaining participants performed all recall attempts in a motivated waking condition. Hypnosis failed to enhance correct recall for either high or low hypnotizable participants beyond the hypermnesia and reminiscence effects associated with repeated retrieval attempts over time. However, whereas high hypnotizable partiapants produced substantial numbers of confident mall errors (i.e., intrusions) independent of the use of hypnosis, low hypnotizable partiapants exposed to hypnotic procedures reported significantly more intrusions than their counterparts in the waking condition. In Experiment 2, partiapants were asked to identify whether specific recollections, reported during two forced-interrogatory recall tests conducted 1 week earlier, had originated in the first or second of those tests. A general bias to misattribute previously reported recollections to the first of two recall occasions was observed; however, the effect was greatest among low hypnotizables who had undergone the second recall attempt in hypnosis. The findings imply that highly hypnotizable individuals are not unique in their vulnerability to distortions of memory induced by hypnotic techniques. Individuals of lesser hypnotic capacity also manifest memory alterations when exposed to such procedures.