Hypnosis versus relaxation: accuracy and confidence in dating international news events

Abstract

This study compared participants who were administered either a hypnosis (n ¼ 50) or a relaxation (n ¼ 44) recall priming procedure in terms of the ability to estimate the dates of 20 relatively memorable ('easy') vs. less memorable ('difficult') international news events. The hypnosis and relaxation groups performed comparably in terms of the accuracy of estimates of when the events occurred, self-reported confidence in estimates, and the memorability and emotionality of the events that were reported during hypnosis and relaxation. After these initial ratings, participants were informed that 'at least one' of their estimates was incorrect, and they were given the opportunity to change their estimates of the date of when one or more of the events occurred. Participants who generated their initial estimates during hypnosis were less likely to change their previous estimates of both easy and difficult events, than were participants in the relaxation condition. The measure of selfreported confidence and a behavioural measure of willingness to change initial reports were largely dissociated from one another.

The (perceived) meaning of spontaneous thoughts.

“…Holmes, 1968). Despite serious questions regarding the accuracy of memories recovered during hypnosis (Loftus, 1993;Loftus, Garry, Brown, & Rader, 1994;Schooler, Bendiksen, & Ambadar, 1997), for instance, laypeople place considerable weight on the thoughts and memories it elicits (Green & Lynn, 2005). Moreover, patients believe recovered memories offer self-insight only to the extent that those memories appear to have been spontaneously recovered during therapy rather than suggested by their support group or therapist (Bowers & Farvolden, 1996).…”

The Death of Princess Diana: The Effects of Memory Enhancement Procedures on Flashbulb Memories

“…In many instances when hypnosis does increase accurate memoriesoften because people guess and report memories when they are unsure-this increase is offset or even surpassed by an increase in inaccurate memories (see [43,45,46]). Additionally, hypnosis generally increases eyewitnesses' confidence in inaccurate, as well as accurate, memories [45,47,48]. Research indicates that medium and highly hypnotizable individuals are most prone to memory distortions, although even low hypnotizable participants also report false memories [44,49].…”