Hypnosis and Reporting Biases: Telling the Truth

Hypnotic phenomena and altered states of consciousness: a multilevel framework of description and explanation

“…Perugini, Kirsch, Allen, Coldwell, Meredith, Montgomery and Sheehan, 1998). Subjects are more likely to respond accurately in the absence of untoward pressure to comply or to think that not responding is a failure (Perlini, Haley and Buczel, 1998;Kinnunen, Zamansky and Nordstrom, 2001). …”

Hypnotic deafness: a cross‐paradigm analysis

“…These responses may be interpreted as representing genuine aspects of one's experience -an experience that is difficult to create using the cognitive strategies called for by the suggestion. While reporting biases may certainly be a component of reports of suggested deafness, previous research by Perlini et al (1998) indicates that cognitive activity accounts for significant variance, over-andabove reporting bias, in suggested deafness reports. Taken together, the hypnotic subjects' reports of deafness likely reflect elements of both genuine changes in perceptions of sound and reporting bias.…”

“…Hilgard, 1977) that high hypnotizable non-hypnotic subjects inadvertently 'slip into' hypnosis; hence, high hypnotizable subjects may be exposed to the same treatment as low hypnotizable subjects, but respond identically for different reasons. It is important to point out that this hypothesis does not provide any criterion for distinguishing between subjective changes due to hypnosis and subjective changes due other psychological factors (Spanos, 1986); moreover, several investigators (e.g., Perlini et al, 1998;Spanos et al, 1991-92) have demonstrated that reported perceptual alterations following hypnotic procedures are associated with increments in cognitive strategy use and that such strategy use is neither specific nor unique to hypnosis. In addition, such reports of cognitive-strategy use are indistinguishable from those proffered by subjects in non-hypnotic (e.g.…”

“…For example, in a typical demonstration of auditory negative hallucinations, subjects will receive a suggestion that they cannot hear a sound that is presented to them. Studies to assess the validity of negative hallucinations have, however, been inconclusive and the overall pattern of findings has been both conflicting and ambiguous (Perlini, Haley and Buczel, 1998). Difficulties in the interpretation of these studies have included small sample sizes, failures to control for simple changes in attention deployment and failures to test for suggestion effects in the absence of hypnosis.…”

Managing Agency for Athletic Performance: A Discursive Approach to theZone

“…However, the hypnosis literature suggests that being in a hypnotic trance is something that can be enacted and perhaps be used as a means of accounting for some kinds of behaviours. Indeed, hypnosis researchers have considered how to ascertain genuine changes in experience from those that are inauthentic or exaggerated because of the social demands of the situation (Perlini, Haley & Buczel, 1998). Wagstaff (1996) and others have suggested that there may be an element of compliance with situational demands of what is expected of a hypnotic episode by participants when reporting their private experience.…”