Hypnotic Clever Hands: Agency and Automatic Responding

2017

The sense of agency is the experience of initiating and controlling one’s voluntary actions and their outcomes. Intentional binding (the compressed time interval between voluntary actions and their outcomes) is increased in intentional action but requires no explicit reflection on agency. The reported experience of involuntariness is central to hypnotic responding, where strategic action is experienced as involuntary. We report reduced intentional binding in a hypnotically induced experience of involuntariness, providing an objective correlate of reports of involuntariness. We argue that reduced binding results from the diminished influence of motor intentions in the generation of the sense of agency when beliefs about whether an action is intended are altered. Thus, intentional binding depends upon awareness of intentions, showing that changes in metacognition of intentions affect perception.

2021

Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2014

Building on Hilgard’s (1965) classic work, the domain of hypnosis has been conceptualized by Barnier, Dienes, and Mitchell (2008) as comprising 3 levels that represent distinct aspects of hypnotic phenomena: a) responses to different types of hypnotic suggestions, b) varying patterns of response over the phases of a suggestion, and c) the impact of state and trait influences. The current experiment investigates sense of agency across each of these three levels. Forty-six high hypnotizable participants completed an ideomotor (arm levitation), a challenge (arm rigidity), and a cognitive (anosmia) item, with or without a hypnotic induction. In a postexperimental inquiry, participants rated their feelings of control at three time points for each item: during the suggestion, test, and cancellation phases. They also completed the Sense of Agency Rating Scale (Polito, Barnier, & Woody, 2013) for each item. Pass rates and control ratings fluctuated across the different types of items and the three phases of each item; control ratings and agency scores also differed between participants who passed and failed each item. In addition, whereas a hypnotic induction influenced the likelihood of passing items, it had no direct effect on agentive experiences. These results suggest that altered sense of agency is not a unidimensional or static quality “switched on” by hypnotic induction, but a dynamic multidimensional construct that varies across items, over time, and according to whether individuals pass or fail suggestions.

The primary phenomenological feature of a response to hypnotic suggestion is the perception that a person is not the author of their actions and experiences. This distortion in volition during hypnotic responding, known as the classic suggestion effect, has the potential to illuminate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying hypnosis and inform broader models of agency. Here, we sought to clarify interindividual differences in the patterns of agency that participants experience during hypnosis. We applied latent profile analysis, a finite mixture modeling method for partitioning participants into homogeneous classes, to participants' responses to a standardized behavioral measure of hypnotic suggestibility and an experiential measure of sense of agency during hypnotic responding. The best fitting model suggested that there were 4 discrete response patterns: a low suggestible class, 2 medium suggestible classes, and 1 highly suggestible class. The 2 medium suggestible classes displayed nearly equivalent patterns of behavioral hypnotic responding but diverged in their experience of agency during hypnotic responding: 1 class experienced greater involuntariness during responding, whereas the other experienced greater effortlessness during responding. These results reinforce previous research highlighting differential patterns of hypnotic responding and complement work suggesting that there may be 2 or more phenomenologically distinct modes of hypnotic responding. They also have a number of implications for the measurement of hypnotic responding and for the use of low and medium suggestible individuals in experimental hypnosis research designs.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993

Ss rated the extent to which they expected to respond to each of the suggestions on a hypnotizability scale both before and after the administration of the preliminary hypnotic induction procedure. After the induction, Ss also rated the extent to which they planned to respond actively and passively to each suggestion. Contrary to strong versions of response-expectancy theory, the extent to which Ss planned to adopt an active interpretation predicted behavioral and subjective indexes of hypnotizability even after controlling for the effects of postinduction expectations. In addition, an active interpretation significantly predicted response to suggestion for which Ss held weak and uncertain expectations. The relationship between expectation and hypnotizability was found to be fan-shaped rather than linear. Implications are discussed.

Hypnosis has often been considered a mysterious phenomenon. In recent decades, procedures have been developed that have allowed us to explain this phenomenon in terms of variables of social or cognitive theories. However, previous approaches have not permitted formulating or delimiting the conditions that are responsible for following suggestions or their explanation in terms of involuntariness. For this purpose, two experiments were performed. In the first one, two hypnotic protocols were compared, the differences of which were aimed at influencing the voluntary and involuntary explanation of following suggestions and the effect of multiple exposure to both protocols. In the second experiment, four procedures to facilitate the voluntary interpretation of behavior were incorporated. The results of the first experiment yielded no statistically significant differences. However, in the second experiment, it was noted that changing the assessment questionnaire of the hypnotic experiences decreased following suggestions by 26%, and together with this, the use of explicit instructions did so by 67%. These results are discussed with regard to the involvement of rule-governed or instructional behavior in the so-called hypnotic phenomenon.

Consciousness and Cognition, 2012

Forming implementation intentions has been consistently shown to be a powerful selfregulatory strategy. As the self-regulation of thoughts is important for the experience of involuntariness in the hypnotic context, investigating the effectiveness of implementation intentions on the suppression of thoughts was the focus of the present study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (hypnotic instruction plus implementation intention, hypnotic instruction, implementation intention, and control condition). Results showed that participants who received information included in the ''Carleton Skill Training Program'' and in addition formed implementation intentions improved their hypnotic responsiveness as compared to all of the other three groups on measures of objective responding and involuntary responding. Thus, in line with the nonstate or cognitive socialpsychological view of hypnosis stating that an individual's hypnotic suggestibility is not dispositional but modifiable, our results suggest that hypnotic responsiveness can be heightened by furnishing hypnotic instructions with ad hoc implementation intentions.

Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1990

We tested a hypothesis from parallel distributed processing theory that highly hypnotizable subjects have greater connection strengths along verbal pathways and would show greater Stroop effects than low hypnotizable subjects. Using Cheesman & Merikle's (1986) paradigm, which varied cue visibility and probability, we assessed automatic and strategic effects on Stroop performance. Compared with 9 low and 9 moderately hypnotizable subjects, 9 highly hypnotizable ones showed significantly greater Stroop effects for both visible-and degraded-word trials. No strategic differences emerged for the 3 hypnotizability groups. These findings support the contention that highly hypnotizable persons have stronger verbal connection strengths than their moderately and low susceptible counterparts, and they may account for highly hypnotizable persons' propensity to disregard personal attributions and label their responses in hypnosis as being involuntary.

Psychological Review, 1990

The experience of involuntariness is a hallmark of hypnosis. A framework for understanding involuntary experiences that draws from social psychological and cognitive perspectives on hypnotic responding is presented. There are at least 5 reasons to reject the hypothesis that hypnotic responding is automatic and involuntary: (a) Hypnotic responses have all of the properties of behavior that is typically defined as voluntary. That is, they are purposeful, directed toward goals, regulated in terms of subjects' intentions, and can be progressively changed to better achieve subjects' goals. (b) Hypnotizable subjects can resist suggestions when resistance is defined as consistent with the role of a good hypnotized subject. (c) Hypnotic behaviors are neither reflexes nor manifestations of innate stimulus-response connections. (d) Hypnotic performances consume attentional resources in a manner comparable with nonhypnotic performances. (e) Hypnotic subjects' cognitive activities clearly demonstrate their active attempts to fulfill the requirements of hypnotic suggestions, which include experiencing suggestion-related effects as involuntary.

2021

In a recent study, Lush et al. (Nat Commun 11, 4853, 2020) claimed that they found “substantial relationships” between hypnotizability and experimental measures of the rubber hand illusion. The authors proposed that hypnotizable participants control their phenomenology to meet task expectations arising from the experimental paradigm. They further suggest that the rubber hand illusion “may or may not” be entirely explained by hypnotic suggestions driven by task expectancies and therefore could reflect top-down control of perception, instead of multisensory mechanisms. However, in reanalyzing their data, we observe no significant relationships between hypnotic suggestibility and the rubber hand illusion when quantified using a control condition in line with the authors’ preregistered hypothesis. Furthermore, we note that the relationships that the authors describe are weak and observed for a visual “hallucination” control experience and in the control condition, indicating a general i...

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2023

The author proposes that hypnosis is a culture-bound concept that has misattributed-to suggestion and hypnosis-the functioning of a natural, freestanding, human ability to alter personal experience. The 18th-century attribution of these phenomena (to the suggestions of a magnetizer) continues today because science and Western culture still do not explicitly acknowledge that humans possess a natural capacity to intentionally alter their own experiences. Like every other human ability (e.g. athletic, artistic, musical, mathematical, etc.), utilization of the natural human ability to intentionally alter one's personal experience does not require suggestion, trance, or hypnotic induction. This ability has been studied for over 200 years under the conceptual aegis of suggestibility and hypnosis. As a consequence, the phenomena of this freestanding ability have been veiled and conflated with hypnosis, suggestion, suggestibility, and hypnotizability. One serious consequence of this conflation is an underdeveloped, nomological network of hypnosis-centric concepts that has impeded the integration of hypnosis with the rest of science.

Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1978

Recent research in hypnosis has been a proliferation of challenges to the traditional view of the hypnotized subject as someone under control of the hypnotist and in a hypnotic trance. Many investigators seem to agree on the essential cognitive processes, antecedent conditions, and developmental factors necessary for a subject to be hypnotically responsive (Spanos & Barber, 1974). At the same time evidence has accumulated, primarily from the Cognitive Behavioral paradigm , that challenges the unity and utility of the traditional sleep/trance induction in enhancing suggestibility . These studies show that specific variables (e.g., the subject engaging in goal-directed imagining) are critical for maximum hypnotic responsiveness, and that the traditional sleep/trance induction does not maximize these variables (DeStafano, 1977;

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2020

This study examined if participants respond to different types of suggestions, including hypnosis, uniquely or similarly. This study used 9 suggestibility measures and hypothesized a 3-factor model. It was hypothesized that hypnosis, Chevreul's pendulum, and bodysway would load on the first factor; the odor test, progressive weights, and placebo on the second factor; and conformity, persuasibility, and interrogative suggestibility would load on the third factor. The study comprised 110 college students. Factor analyses failed to result in three factors. Additional attempts at two and three-factor models were also rejected. Hypnosis had no strong relationship with the various suggestibility measures. Thus, no clearly delineated factor structure of suggestibility emerged, indicating that the domain of suggestibility seems to be neither a single attribute, trait, or group of related abilities. Implications are discussed.

Consciousness and Cognition, 2013

Two experiments report on the construction of the Sense of Agency Rating Scale (SOARS), a new measure for quantifying alterations to agency. In Experiment 1, 370 participants completed a preliminary version of the scale following hypnosis. Factor analysis revealed two underlying factors: Involuntariness and Effortlessness. In Experiment 2, this two factor structure was confirmed in a sample of 113 low, medium and high hypnotisable participants. The two factors, Involuntariness and Effortlessness, correlated significantly with hypnotisability and pass rates for ideomotor, challenge and cognitive items. Twelve week test–retest correlations showed that Involuntariness was highly stable, but Effortlessness only moderately stable. Analysis of the combined datasets from Experiments 1 and 2 showed both SOARS scores were significantly related to the derived factors of Woody, Barnier, and McConkey’s (2005) 4-factor model of hypnotisability. This scale clarifies conceptual confusion around agentive action and provides empirical support for a multifactorial account of sense of agency.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998

The authors used the "bogus-item" methodology originally used by C. to examine the effects of response expectancy manipulations on subjects' subsequently measured hypnotizability scores. The results of the first experiment failed to replicate findings that surreptitious confirmation of suggested items (the bogus-item manipulation) leads to higher scores on subsequently measured hypnotic responsiveness. The second experiment tested if, in fact, response expectancies were enhanced by the bogus-item manipulation, and the manipulation's effect on behavioral and subjective responsiveness to hypnosis was reexamined. A significant increase was found in response expectancies as a result of the bogus item expectancy manipulation, but again no evidence that this manipulation led to increased hypnotic responsiveness was found. Hypnotic responsiveness may not be as reactive to expectancy manipulations as previously claimed, and it is suggested that the notion of hypnotic responsiveness as a traitlike ability is viable.