Transcript Hypnosis and Memory

Hypnosis and Memory
Triple Threat
Sheila Krogh-Jespersen
Victoria Cox
Alicia Briganti
Outline:
 The Basics
 Traditional vs. Sociocognitive Perspectives
 Enhancing Retrieval and the Cognitive
Interview
Kihlstrom:
 Hypnosis=1 person(subject) acting on
suggestions from another
person(hypnotist) for imaginative
experiences involving alterations in
cognition and voluntary action
Posthypnotic Amnesia:
 Inability to remember events/experiences
which occurred during hypnotism
 Temporary
 Functional amnesia
 Impairs explicit memory
Hypnotic Agnosia:
 Disrupts a subject’s
semantic/procedural memory
 Forget the number 12
 Meaningless word
Hypnotic Hypermnesia:
 Performance enhancement
 Increase False Recollections
 Cognitive Interview
Memory Enhancement and
Hypnosis:
 Hypnotism increases the number of
accurate recollections but….
 It also increase the number of new
errors
Hypnotic Age Regression:
 Ablation
 Reinstatement
 Revivification
In the Court and Clinic:
 Mock organized-crime execution
 Cognitive Interview
Why?
 Hypnosis is still used to recover
“repressed” memories
 Hypnosis impairs explicit memory
 Public perceptions of the efficacy of
hypnosis may increase the likelihood of
memory distortions
The Hypnotic Minidrama
The Two Perspectives
 Traditional –
 Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness that
enables people to have unusual experiences.
 Sociocognitive –
 Hypnosis refers to the historically rooted
conceptions of situations that are labeled
“hypnotic.”
Components of Hypnosis
 Phrasing of the hypnotist
 Suggestion that specific behavioral
responses are emerging automatically
The Social Construction of
Hypnosis…
 Do you buy it?
Challenges and Fallacies
 Behavior of “the hypnotized” and “the
requested” does not differ
 Increased motivation makes increased
suggestibility
 Cognitive processes in simulators and
non-simulators
Dramatic behaviors
 See no evil, hear no evil
 Stiff arm syndrome
Are they so dramatic?
 Hitting someone?
 Taking off clothes?
 Running a mile, or 2, or 3?
Hypnotic Amnesia
 Automatically occurring
 Actively forgetting
 Socially responding
Posthypnotic Responding
 Implant cues to automatically elicit a
suggested response
 Context and belief dependent
Hypnosis Creates…
 Human Automatons
Enhancing Retrieval and
The Cognitive Interview
ACCORDING TO JONES
Psychotherapists should:
 Educate clients
 Choose methods judiciously
(Jones, 1999)
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
 Police techniques
 Hypnosis
 Cognitive Interview
COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
 4 Basic principles:
1. Event-interview similarity
2. Focused retrieval
3. Extensive retrieval
4. Witness-compatible
questioning
 Temporal sequence:
1. Introduction
2. Free recall
3. Probing stage
4. Review
5. Conclusion
(Fisher, Geiselman, & Amador, 1989)
FIELD TEST
 16 detectives (1 trained group; 1
untrained group)
 Preliminary interviews
 Training
 Post-training interviews
 Analysis
EXPERIMENT
 51 non-students watched videotapes of
a crime
 Interviewed 48 hours later either by
standard interview or cognitive interview
 4 retrieval mnemonics and 5 memoryrecovery techniques used in C.I.
condition
(Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, and Holland, 1986)
RESULTS
Variable
No. Correct*
No. Incorrect
No. Confabulated
Question time (min)
No. questions asked*
No. leading
questions asked
C. I.
41.67
8.57
1.88
30.11
76.73
0.15
S. I.
35.58
8.61
2.17
29.10
93.06
0.83
More correct
items recalled
No difference in #
of incorrect items
recalled
Fewer questions
asked; more
efficient
HYPNOSIS VS. the COGNITIVE
INTERVIEW
 C.I. elicited 33.4% more information than hypnosis
(Fisher, Geiselman, Raymond, Jurkevich, & Warhaftig, 1987)
 C.I. does not lead to increased error rate
 C.I. lessens subjects’ suggestibility to leading
questions (Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1986)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT…
 Should the Cognitive Interview be incorporated into
the standard training program of all investigative
interviewers?
 Would it be as effective if the witness is a child?
 Would it still be as effective after a long delay? If
the event was very traumatic?