3. Today’s talk will cover: Myths about hypnosis Higher order thoughts and cold control Predictions and tests of cold control theory Implementing cold control Why hypnosis/cold control exists
4. Myths! Being hypnotised will make you dance like a chicken Highly hypnotisable people are weak-minded You can get stuck in a hypnotic trance You won’t remember anything Hypnosis is like being asleep
5. Current Theories of Hypnosis Dissociation theories Executive functions dissociated from contention scheduling system Neurophysiological Theories Hypnotic responding results from exhaustion of frontal lobe functions Socio-cognitive theories Response expectancy, imagination, context, social desirability, motivation, absorption, fantasy-proneness Cold control theory.....
6. Higher Order Thought TheoryDavid Rosenthal (1986,2005) A conscious mental state is a mental state of which we are conscious We are conscious of things, states, etc by thinking or perceiving that they exist A mental state is conscious when we think we are in that state. I.e., when we have a HOT.
7. Distinguish first order content ‘The tree is green’ from second order content: ‘I see that the tree is green’ Second order content is required for mental states to be conscious! Similarly for intentions....
8. HOTs “I think I am intending to lift my arm” “Lift the arm!” “I am intending to lift my arm” Unconscious mental state Conscious mental state Conscious of… Or aware of… Introspectively aware of … Consciously aware of…
9. Note: “Executive control” (e.g. overcoming habit) can be unconscious on HOT theory Because we could have an intention producing the control in principle without having an HOT about having that intention. (huh?) This contradicts the common assumption in the literature (and our intuition – we feel that we have free will)
10. Cold Control TheoryZoltanDienes and Josef Perner(2007) Executive control without awareness Hypnosis requires inaccurate or absent HOTs I.e. Create an intention to lift the arm, but unaware of intention “My arm must be rising by itself!”
11. Predictions of cold control I. Anything that can be done outside of hypnosis can be done as a hypnotic suggestion e.g. executive tasks: contrast theories that imply a special state of ‘hypnotic hypofrontality’ II. One cannot do anything as a hypnotic suggestion one cannot do otherwise (the difference is just in whether it felt involuntary)
12. I. Can hypnotic suggestions involve executive function tasks (exclusion)? Suggestion to forget the number "four": "1,2,3,5,6,.." – overcoming habit but person claims ignorance of what has been excluded => no second order thought. b) Spanos et al (1982): highs suggested to forget certain words (e.g. cat, boat) produced those words at a below baseline level in a word association test. Executive control because existing associations must be excluded.
13. II One cannot do anything as a hypnotic suggestion one cannot do otherwise Prima facie counter-example: People can “see” colours with hypnotic hallucination they cannot see with imagination (Kosslyn et al, 2000) S asked to drain or add colour. PET showed changes in left and right fusiform after hypnotic suggestion but not after instructions to just imagine (right side only)
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15. Kirsch et al’s follow-up (2008) “Research has also shown that people can respond to suggestions for perceptual alterations whether or not they have been hypnotised. The purpose of this study is to assess your ability – both in and out of hypnosis – to experience coloured stimuli as if they were grey and grey stimuli as if they were coloured.”
16. Subjects rated how much colour they saw on 0-100% scale And rated how hypnotised they were:(1) normal state (2) relaxed (3) hypnotized (4) deeply hypnotized No participant reported slipping into trance during the no-hypnosis part of the study (M= 1.40) and all but one reported being hypnotized during the hypnosis part (M = 3.10).
17. Highs can perform the most difficult suggestions with or without hypnotic induction!
23. Design 24 Mediums (4- 8 on Waterloo) Five minutes 1HZ rTMS to: a) Left Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex b) Vertex In counterbalanced order Hypnotist blind to site stimulated
24. Suggestions Magnetic hands (easy motor) Arm levitation (hard motor) Rigid arm (challenge) Sweet /sour taste (cognitive) Measurements: Subjective experience (0-5) Objective response (experimenter rated: 0-100%) Expectancy (last 12 subjects)
25. Results No effect on objective ratings Subjective ratings increased in the frontal, compared to the control condition Expectancy is a strong predictor of hypnotic response but effect of response site not mediated by expectancy
27. The Effects of alcohol on hypnosis Alcohol inhibits frontal lobe function We got 16 people drunk, gave another 16 people a placebo and then hypnotised them. Before each suggestion, we asked them how much they expected to respond to it, and how much they felt they had experienced each one afterwards.
29. Alcohol increases hypnotic responding Frontal lobe performance was impaired, according to the results of the letter fluency task Expectancy is a strong predictor of hypnotic response but effect of alcohol was not mediated by expectancy People who had alcohol experienced the hypnotic suggestions more strongly than people in the placebo condition.
30. 29 Meditation and Hypnosis Meditation and hypnosis - frequently regarded as involving similar processes and skills. Meditation: cultivates attention in the form of mindfulness of the environment and of inner mental states. Hypnosis involves: increased attentional functioning... or ... a lack of awareness of mental states, specifically of intentions?
31. Cold Control Theory Cold control theory summarises the latter position by claiming the essence of hypnotic responding is indeed intending to perform (motorically or cognitively) without being aware of those intentions. Hypnosis involves inaccurate higher order thoughts (HOTs) about first order intentions. Meditation, and mindfulness in particular, involves cultivating accurate HOTs about mental states. 30
32. Predictions Highs may be less aware of their mental states and less mindful of the environment and thus be able to perform intentional acts without being aware of their intention to do so (hypnotic responding). Highs may have very good attentional control of their mental states, allowing them to focus on one specific aspect of the internal or external world and ignore others. 31
33. Participants and Procedure 34 (16 male) highs and lows from Sussex University. Screened using the Waterloo-Stanford Group Susceptibility scale (WSGS). Participants completed a number of questionnaires and took part in a meditation task meant to measure the accuracy of HOTs (“candle task”). 32
42. 36 Fig. 1: Mean differences between highs and lows on HOT candle meditation task (controlling for social desirability)
43. 37 Fig. 2: Mean differences between highs and lows on self-report measures
44. After controlling for social desirability, highs scored significantly lower on a measure of mindfulness than lows (p = .02). Highs scored significantly higher than lows on a measure of cognitive failures (p = .04). Highs also scored higher on measures of absorption, thought suppression, and internal encoding style, yet these differences were not significant. 38
46. Summary of Results Highs: Less HOT coupling Poorer meta-awareness Fits with the idea that highs have a poorer tendency/ability to form accurate HOTs
47. Conclusions Highly hypnotisable people are less aware of their mental states and of the environment than lows. That is, they are less mindful. Contrary to a popular belief, meditation and hypnosis are opposites! 41
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49. How expectations seem to have much larger effects in hypnotic rather than typical non-hypnotic contexts
54. 2) Sociological functions: You can perform behaviours for which you are not responsible Lewis (1971, 2003): Spirit possession serves important functions in the possessed.
55. Summary of our findings Impairing frontal lobe function with alcohol or TMS increases hypnotic responding People who meditate regularly tend to be more mindful than those who don’t, and people who are more mindful tend to be less hypnotisable
56. E.g. Socially marginalised people can acquire the gifts necessary for the spirit to be exorcised (e.g. wife demanding more resources from husband). A person can acquire the authority of the spirit and rise to positions of political power. Very common cross culturally.
57. Cold control would be the ideal way of fulfilling these functions as it ensures the contextual appropriateness of the relevant “involuntary” behaviours and experiences.
Editor's Notes
Successful response to hypnotic suggestions can be achieved by forming an intention (in the executive system) to perform the action or cognitive activity required, without forming the higher order thoughts about intending that action that would normally accompany the reflective performance of the action (but rather forming inaccurate higher order thoughts to the effect that one did not intend the action).
intending to perform (motorically or cognitively)
These different accounts lead to different predictions about the relation of hypnotisability to mindfulness of mental states:
While the means are in the right direction for highs being less mindful than lows as measured by the task (as seen by meditation scores), there is insufficient sensitivity to detect any significant differences. Although these measures correlate with mindfulness (see table 1), a longer time may be needed for the meditation task to see clear effects.
Fig. 2: Mean differences between highs and lows on self-report measuresAfter controlling for social desirability, highs scored significantly lower on a measure of mindfulness than lows (p = .02). Highs scored significantly higher than lows on a measure of cognitive failures (p = .04). They also scored higher on measures of absorption, thought suppression, and internal encoding style, yet these differences were not significant.
