Time to update our suggestibility scales

Kallio, Sakari

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2021.103103

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…One potentially critical issue is that the participants in Lush et al (2020) were a group that scored low on the hypnotisability trait. As noted above, the mean SWASH hypnotisability score was only 1.6 ( SD = 0.7) on a scale from 0 to 5 ( Lush et al, 2020 ), which means that most participants in this study were not very hypnotisable and thus were unlikely to be able to experience vivid perception-like “hallucinations.” It has been suggested that the ability to experience “true” hypnotic hallucinations is a rare trait that is only seen in a few individuals who score very highly on hypnotisability scales, similar to synaesthesia ( Kallio, 2021 ). In addition, hypnotisability scales such as SWASH have been criticised for being confounded by purposeful imagination (rather than automatic experiences and behaviours), and it has been argued that there is no single suggestibility trait but rather a set of complementary skills and traits involved ( Kallio, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multisensory Integration Dominates Hypnotisability and Expectations in the Rubber Hand Illusion

Slater

Ehrsson

2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Some recent papers by P. Lush and colleagues have argued that the rubber hand illusion (RHI), where participants can feel a rubber hand as their own under appropriate multisensory stimulation, may be caused mainly by hypnotic suggestibility and expectations (demand characteristics). These papers rely primarily on a study with 353 participants who took part in a RHI experiment carried out in a classical way with brush stroking. Participants experienced a synchronous condition where the rubber hand was seen to be touched in synchrony with touch felt on their corresponding hidden real hand, or the touches were applied asynchronously as a control. Each participant had a related measure of their hypnotisability on a scale known as the Sussex-Waterloo Scale of Hypnotisability (SWASH). The authors found a correlation between the questionnaire ratings of the RHI in the synchronous condition and the SWASH score. From this, they concluded that the RHI is largely driven by suggestibility and further proposed that suggestibility and expectations may even entirely explain the RHI. Here we examine their claims in a series of extensive new analyses of their data. We find that at every level of SWASH, the synchronous stimulation results in greater levels of the illusion than the asynchronous condition; moreover, proprioceptive drift is greater in the synchronous case at every level of SWASH. Thus, while the level of hypnotisability does modestly influence the subjective reports (higher SWASH is associated with somewhat higher illusion ratings), the major difference between the synchronous and asynchronous stimulation is always present. Furthermore, by including in the model the participants’ expectancy ratings of how strongly they initially believed they would experience the RHI in the two conditions, we show that expectations had a very small effect on the illusion ratings; model comparisons further demonstrate that the multisensory condition is two-to-three-times as dominant as the other factors, with hypnotisability contributing modestly and expectations negligibly. Thus, although the results indicate that trait suggestibility may modulate the RHI, presumably through intersubject variations in top-down factors, the findings also suggest that the primary explanation for the RHI is as a multisensory bodily illusion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multisensory Integration Dominates Hypnotisability and Expectations in the Rubber Hand Illusion

Slater

Ehrsson

2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…Along the same lines, our work brings forth the pertinence of inventories where suggestibility is construed as a measure of social steerability to study influence under regular perceptual contexts. Such inventories might be relevant for the development of improved measures of suggestibility, an issue recently revisited in the hypnosis domain (Acunzo & Terhune, 2021;Oakley et al, 2021;Kallio, 2021). Moreover, our findings suggest that scales of suggestibility could be valuable tools for studying not only perception, but more generally the construction of judgments, beliefs and trust.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Social steerability modulates perceptual biases

Anlló

Watanabe

Sackur

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Verbal hints can bias perceptual decision-making, even when the information they provide is false. Whether individuals may be more or less susceptible to such perceptual influences, however, remains unclear. We asked naive participants to indicate the dominant color in a series of stimuli, after giving them a false statement about which color would likely dominate. As anticipated, this statement biased participants perception of the dominant color, as shown by a correlated shift of their perceptual decisions, confidence judgments and response times. Crucially, this perceptual bias was more pronounced in participants with higher levels of susceptibility to social influence, as measured by a standard suggestibility scale. Together, these results indicate that even without much apparatus, simple verbal hints can affect our perceptual reality, and that social steerability can determine how much they do so. Susceptibility to suggestion might thus be considered an integral part of perceptual processing.

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“…Along the same lines, our work brings forth the pertinence of inventories where suggestibility is construed as a measure of social steerability to study influence under regular perceptual contexts. Such inventories might be relevant for the development of improved measures of suggestibility, an issue recently revisited in the hypnosis domain (Acunzo & Terhune, 2021; Kallio, 2021; Oakley et al, 2021). Moreover, our findings suggest that scales of suggestibility could be valuable tools for studying not only perception but also more generally the construction of judgments, beliefs, and trust.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of false statements on visual perception hinge on social suggestibility.

Anlló¹,

Watanabe²,

Sackur³

et al. 2022

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Verbal hints can bias perceptual decision-making, even when the information they provide is false. What makes individuals more or less susceptible to such influences, however, remains unclear. Here, we inquire whether suggestibility to social influence, a high-level trait measured by a standard suggestibility scale, could predict changes in perceptual judgments. We asked naive participants to indicate the dominant color in a series of stimuli after giving them a short, false verbal statement about which color would likely dominate. We found that this statement biased participants’ perceptual judgments of the dominant color, as shown by a correlated shift of their discrimination performance, confidence judgments, and response times. Crucially, this effect was more pronounced in participants with higher levels of susceptibility to social influence. Together, these results indicate that social suggestibility can determine how much simple (albeit false) verbal hints influence perceptual judgments.

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Time to update our suggestibility scales

Cited by 10 publications

References 29 publications

Multisensory Integration Dominates Hypnotisability and Expectations in the Rubber Hand Illusion

Multisensory Integration Dominates Hypnotisability and Expectations in the Rubber Hand Illusion

Social steerability modulates perceptual biases

Effects of false statements on visual perception hinge on social suggestibility.

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