Abstract

To test Spanos, Radtke, and Dubreuil's (1982) hypothesis that highly hypnotizable subjects strategically orient their responses to amnesia in line with the experimenter's demands, simulators (Orne, 1979) and subjects of stratified hypnotizability levels were administered a complex amnesia and aphasia suggestion for previously memorized words and their homonyms. Amnesia was assessed through free recalls and aphasia via word association tasks and reaction times. Both very high hypnotizable subjects and simulators displayed recall amnesia and associative impairments suggesting that a complex hypnotic suggestion for a combination of several memory deficits may disrupt both episodic and semantic memory functioning. Although both very high hypnotizable and simulating subjects demonstrated amnesia and aphasia, the two groups differed in the processes by which they displayed these suggested phenomena. Analyses were performed on the probability of critical target materials being elicited as first associates, as opposed to second or third associates, and on latencies of first associative responses. Both suggested that simulators, but not very high hypnotizables, may have been employing a more effortful, voluntary cognitive strategy during the word association task to meet the demands of the suggestions for amnesia and aphasia. The results suggest that a social-psychological model of hypnotic amnesia does not provide a complete and sufficient account of hypnotic phenomena.