Attention control and susceptibility to hypnosis.
The present work aimed at assessing whether the interference exerted by task-irrelevant spatial information is comparable in high- and low-susceptible individuals and whether it may be eliminated by means of a specific posthypnotic suggestion. To this purpose high- and low-susceptible participants were tested using a Simon-like interference task after the administration of a suggestion aimed at preventing the processing of the irrelevant spatial information conveyed by the stimuli. The suggestion could be administered either in the absence or following a standard hypnotic induction. We showed that, outside from the hypnotic context, the Simon effect was similar in high and low-susceptible participants and it was significantly reduced following the posthypnotic suggestion in high-susceptible participants only. These results show that a specific posthypnotic suggestion can alter information processing in high-susceptible individuals and reduce the interfering effect exerted by arrow stimuli.
Iani
Cristina
C
Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali, Cognitive e Quantitative, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy. cristina.iani@unimore.it
Ricci
Federico
F
Baroni
Giulia
G
Rubichi
Sandro
S
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001332:Automatism / Q000523:psychology; D003118:Color Perception; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012193:Reversal Learning; D013404:Suggestion; D055815:Young Adult