Hypnosis and the influence of most recently perceived events

Tested the hypothesis that the expectancy of the hypnotist is especially significant in determining the nature of the response of susceptible Ss. Three studies were conducted, using a total of 126 undergraduates. Using E. G. Boring's ambiguous Wife/Mother-in-Law figure and procedures first isolated by W. Epstein and I. Rock (1960), unique waking conditions were established under which the events most recently seen, rather than what was expected, reliably influenced subsequent perception. The effects of these same conditions were then studied for task-motivated, hypnotized, and waking (imagination only) Ss in formal application of T. X. Barber's (1969) model of hypnosis. Results support the hypothesis showing that susceptible hypnotic Ss exclusively demonstrated expectancy rather than recency behavior in the trance test setting; however, Barber's task-motivation instructions were ineffective in reproducing the suggested response. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)