title: Increased response time of primed associates following an "episodic" hypnotic amnesia suggestion: a case of unconscious volition.
abstract: Following a hypnotic amnesia suggestion, highly hypnotically suggestible subjects may experience amnesia for events. Is there a failure to retrieve the material concerned from autobiographical (episodic) memory, or is it retrieved but blocked from consciousness? Highly hypnotically suggestible subjects produced free-associates to a list of concrete nouns. They were then given an amnesia suggestion for that episode followed by another free association list, which included 15 critical words that had been previously presented. If episodic retrieval for the first trial had been blocked, the responses on the second trial should still have been at least as fast as for the first trial. With semantic priming, they should be faster. In fact, they were on average half a second slower. This suggests that the material had been retrieved but blocked from consciousness. A goal-oriented information processing framework is outlined to interpret these and related data.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK.
authors.forename: Caleb Henry
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Oakley
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000647:Amnesia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D005608:Free Association; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D060865:Repetition Priming / Q000502:physiology; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Amnesia; Autobiographical memory; Free association; Hypnosis; Unconscious processing