The domain of hypnosis includes a variety of alterations in perception and memory, experienced in a subjectively compelling fashion in accordance with the suggestions of the hypnotist. Support is requested for a program of research emphasizing the effects of hypnosis on learning and memory, individual differences in hypnotic response, and their implications for cognitive processes relevant to normal personality, psycho-pathology, and psychotherapy. Studies proposed include: (a) disorganized recall and recognition memory during posthypnotic amnesia, and the effects of memories covered by the amnesia suggestion on ongoing cognition and action; (b) the effect of hypnosis on the recovery of forgotten memories, if any, the optimal means of eliciting such memories, and the mechanisms responsible for the effect; (c) the effect of suggestions for agnosia on the organization of semantic (as opposed to episodic) knowledge; (d) the effect of hypnotically suggested emotional states and other distinctive mental contexts on the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of memory; (e) the role of """"""""concrete"""""""" thinking in subjects' response to hypnotic suggestions; (f) the influence of hypnotic suggestions on the acquisition of new information, (g) contextual and experiential determinants of judgments of hypnotic depth, whether these are made by the subjects themselves or by outside observers; (h) individual differences in cognitive skills and other features of personality, measured in the normal waking state, that may be related to hypnotic susceptibility. Occasional studies of learning and memory in the normal waking state, especially as they are related to personality, will provide additional background for the hypnosis research. The results of this research, viewed from the perspective of both general memory theory and a """"""""neodissociation"""""""" view of divided consciousness, will help clarify the nature of hypnosis and of unconscious mental processes relevant to personality and psychotherapy. This increased understanding of both hypnosis and hypnotizable individuals will, in turn, indicate directions for more appropriate and effective use of hypnosis in the evaluation and treatment of clinical problems.
| Tataryn, Douglas J; Kihlstrom, John F (2017) Hypnotic Tactile Anesthesia: Psychophysical and Signal-Detection Analyses. Int J Clin Exp Hypn 65:133-161 |
| Kihlstrom, John F (2015) Patterns of hypnotic response, revisited. Conscious Cogn 38:99-106 |
| Kihlstrom, John F; Glisky, Martha L; McGovern, Susan et al. (2013) Hypnosis in the right hemisphere. Cortex 49:393-9 |
| Kihlstrom, John F (2013) Neuro-hypnotism: prospects for hypnosis and neuroscience. Cortex 49:365-74 |
| Tobis, Irene P; Kihlstrom, John F (2010) Allocation of attentional resources in posthypnotic suggestion. Int J Clin Exp Hypn 58:367-82 |
| Park, Lillian; Shobe, Katharine K; Kihlstrom, John F (2005) Associative and categorical relations in the associative memory illusion. Psychol Sci 16:792-7 |
| Wenk-Sormaz, Heidi (2005) Meditation can reduce habitual responding. Altern Ther Health Med 11:42-58 |
| Kihlstrom, John F (2003) The fox, the hedgehog, and hypnosis. Int J Clin Exp Hypn 51:166-89 |
| Kihlstrom, John F (2002) Mesmer, the Franklin Commission, and hypnosis: a counterfactual essay. Int J Clin Exp Hypn 50:407-19 |
| Kihlstrom, J F; Cantor Kihlstrom, L (2001) Somatization as illness behavior. Adv Mind Body Med 17:240-3; discussion 270-6 |
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