Hypnotizability, imaginative involvement, and anxiety

Forty-five undergraduate students were investigated to determine the relationship between hypnotizability, imaginative involvement (absorption), and anxiety responses. Hypnotizability was measured independently with the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS), and imaginative involvement was measured with the Absorption Scale (ABS). The results indicated moderate significant correlations between CIS, ABS, and several of the anxiety measures. In particular self-reported physiological aspects of anxiety/activation were associated with the CIS and the ABS. Three of the subjects reported having panic attacks. These subjects also exhibited high hypnotic responsiveness, and their scores on the ABS and several of the anxiety scales were considerably elevated as compared with the group mean level.     

Mueller-Lyer illusion and size estimation performance in schizophrenics compared to normal controls

A size estimation (SE) paradigm and the Mueller-Lyer (ML) illusion were used to examine perceptual disturbances in schizophrenics. 35 reliably diagnosed (DSM III-R) schizophrenics were compared to 20 subjects with no history of psychiatric illness. Perceptual distortions found in previous studies of schizophrenics were only to a certain extent confirmed in the present results. More overestimators were found among the schizophrenics than among the normals on the SE task. The schizophrenics, first of all the chronic patients, also proved to be more prone to the Mueller-Lyer illusion. A reason why the very clear differences between schizophrenics and normals found in previous examinations were not confirmed in the present study, might be that a reliable diagnostic instrument was for the first time used in this kind of study.