Perceptually oriented hypnosis

This theoretical article explores postulates representative of a perceptual frame of reference for a better understanding of hypnotic experiencing. This author contends that Perceptual Psychology, a theory first conceptualized by Snygg and Combs, as revised by Combs, Richards, and Richards in 1988, and Perceptually Oriented Hypnosis provide an effective way of understanding hypnosis, the therapist-client relationship, and has some implications as well for better comprehending psychopathology. Perceptually oriented hypnotic principles are shown to enhance the characeristics of the adequate personality, expand the phenomenal field, change personal meanings, and change aspects of the phenomenal self in the context of hypnosis. Implications for understanding differing views and conflicting perceptions of reality held by scientists and researchers are discussed. Implications for Dissociative Identity Disorder are also addressed. Research utilizing Giorgi's research methodology and Wasicsko's qualitative procedure for assessing educators' dispositions is suggested.     

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.     

Trance logic in hypnosis and imagination.

In 2 experiments we investigated trance logic, or the tolerance of logical incongruity, in age regression and hallucination. Experiment 1 tested 21 hypnotizable and 19 unhypnotizable subjects in an application of the real-simulating model of hypnosis. Experiment 2 tested 26 high and 19 low imagery ability subjects in an adaptation of the model to the imagination context. Subjects' experiences were investigated through the experiential analysis technique. More real than simulating subjects displayed trance logic during age regression, but they did not differ on the major measures of trance logic during hallucination. This pattern of responding occurred in both the hypnosis and the imagination contexts. Subjects' comments suggested that completeness of and belief in age regression or hallucination may play some role in trance logic. The importance of understanding trance logic from the subject's point of view is discussed.     

Conditioning and Interpretation Shifts

This paper develops a probabilistic model of belief change under interpretation shifts, in the context of a problem case from dynamic epistemic logic. Van Benthem [4] has shown that a particular kind of belief change, typical for dynamic epistemic logic, cannot be modelled by standard Bayesian conditioning. I argue that the problems described by van Benthem come about because the belief change alters the semantics in which the change is supposed to be modelled: the new information induces a shift in the interpretation of the sentences. In this paper I show that interpretation shifts can be modeled in terms of updating by conditioning. The model derives from the knowledge structures developed by Fagin et?al [8], and hinges on a distinction between the propositional and informational content of sentences. Finally, I show that Dempster-Shafer theory provides the appropriate probability kinematics for the model.     

Conditioning experiences and phobias

A retrospective study was conducted to examine the extent to which phobias are associated with a conditioning pathway to fear. The Phobic Origin Questionnaire (Öst and Hugdahl, Behav. Res. Ther. 19, 439–477, 1981) was administered to a sample of 91 phobic outpatients (patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobics, simple phobies). Results show clearly that conditioning experiences occur more frequently than either vicarious or informational, learning experiences, which confirms the findings previously reported by Rimm, Janda, Lancaster, Nahl and Dittmar (Behav. Res. Ther. 15, 231–238, 1977) and by Öst and Hugdahl (1981; Behav. Res. Ther. 21, 623–631, 1983). Yet, conditioning experiences consist mainly of panic attacks in confined environments. The findings also suggest that a considerable number of phobias are based on a combination of different pathways to fear.     

Conditioning circuits

A circuit of mutually exciting neurones capable of approaching and maintaining a state of permanent excitation has been described by Rashevsky as a possible mechanism for the production of conditioned reflexes. The mode of approach of such a circuit to the steady state is examined in some detail under slightly more general assumptions, and an estimate is made of the order of magnitude of the time required to reach this state.     

Suggested visual hallucinations in and out of hypnosis

We administered suggestions to see a gray-scale pattern as colored and a colored pattern in shades of gray to 30 high suggestible and eight low suggestible students. The suggestions were administered twice, once following the induction of hypnosis and once without an induction. Besides rating the degree of color they saw in the stimuli differently, participants also rated their states of consciousness as normal, relaxed, hypnotized, or deeply hypnotized. Reports of being hypnotized were limited to highly suggestible participants and only after the hypnotic induction had been administered. Reports of altered color perception were also limited to high suggestibles, but were roughly comparable regardless of whether hypnosis had been induced. These data indicate that suggestible individuals do not slip into a hypnotic state when given imaginative suggestions without the induction of hypnosis, but nevertheless report experiencing difficult suggestions for profound perceptual alterations that are pheonomenologically similar to what they report in hypnosis.