Hypnosis, memory, and frontal executive functioning

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jul 2004  by Hammond, D Corydon

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Farvolden, P. & Woody, E. Z. (2004). Hypnosis, memory, and frontal executive functioning. International Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis, 52(1), 326. This study sought to compare the performance of high and low hypnotizable subjects on a variety of memory tasks believed to be sensitive to frontal lobe functioning, as well as some control memory tasks not related to frontal lobe function.

High hypnotizablcs consistently performed less well on the frontal memory tasks compared with low hypnotizables. High hypnotizables performed relatively poorly on source-amnesia, free-recall (of non-meaningful, unrelated words), and proactive-interference. However, high hypnotizables did just as well as low hypnotizables on memory tasks not considered to be associated with impaired frontal lobe function. It is important to note that both high and low hypnotizables scored within the normal range, but, nonetheless, the authors conclude that the small differences "suggest a subtle association between hypnotic susceptibility and frontal lobe function" (p. 18). Although the authors anticipated that the hypnotic context and induction would enhance differences between high and low hypnotizables, this basically did not occur. This might be interpreted as supporting a sociocognitive theoretical position, but on the other hand, it may be that asking hypnotized persons to complete an extensive battery of demanding cognitive tests, like those used in this study, may be incompatible with maintaining a hypnotic state. It may also be possible that altered frontal lobe functioning may be a necessary characteristic of individuals with high hypnotic capacity. They also concluded that it may be possible that "frontal executive control" is not a unidimensional entity, and different facets of executive control may be associated in different ways with hypnotizability. Address for reprints: Peter Farvolden, Ph.D., Clinical Research Division, Section on Personality & Psychopathology, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, 250 College St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 1RS. E-mail: peter_farvolden@camh.net.

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