Hypnotic susceptibility, baseline attentional functioning, and the Stroop task (original) (raw)

Hypnotic Ability and Baseline Attention: fMRI Findings From Stroop Interference

A benchmark experimental conflict task, the Stroop interference effect, probes selective attention. Regarding individual differences, accounts from multiple independent research groups have shown that a specific suggestion to obviate word meaning can reduce the Stroop interference effect in high-but usually not low-hypnotizable participants. Here we report findings from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showing that high-hypnotizable participants, compared with low-hypnotizables, may maintain a distinct baseline of attention even outside of hypnosis or suggestion. Although previous neuroimaging investigation of suggestion-induced Stroop reduction implicated a locus of brain regions prominently including the anterior cingulate cortex, here we observed suggestion-free group differences focal to the fusiform gyrus and pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus — regions associated with word reading and visual attention, respectively. We contextualize our findings in terms of earlier efforts that have attempted to link hypnotizability and baseline performance of attention.

Hypnotic trait and attentional functions: a psychophysiological study

2007

In questo lavoro abbiamo studiato le capacità attentive di individui con diversa suscettibilità all’ipnosi allo scopo di evidenziare possibili differenze legate al tratto ipnotico. La suscettibilità ipnotica fa riferimento ad un tratto individuale, presente all’incirca nel 10-15% degli individui sani, che li rende capaci di accettare suggestioni modificando, conseguentemente, le loro esperienze coscienti. Recentemente, nell’ambito dell’ipnosi sperimentale il concetto che l’ipnotizzabilità sia strettamente legata a particolari caratteristiche attentive dei soggetti è ormai largamente condiviso. Tuttavia, è ancora dibattuto se, durante la veglia, il sistema attentivo dei soggetti altamente suscettibili all’ipnosi (highs, H) sia effettivamente più efficiente rispetto a quello dei soggetti non suscettibili (lows, L). La prima parte di questa tesi ha cercato di studiare l’esistenza di una relazione tra suscettibilità ipnotica e funzioni attentive, concentrandosi sugli effetti della manip...

Now You See One Letter, Now You See Meaningless Symbols: Perceptual and Semantic Hypnotic Suggestions Reduce Stroop Errors Through Different Neurocognitive Mechanisms

Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2021

Compelling literature has suggested the possibility of adopting hypnotic suggestions to override the Stroop interference effect. However, most of these studies mainly reported behavioral data and were conducted on highly hypnotizable individuals. Thus, the question of the neural locus of the effects and their generalizability remains open. In the present study, we used the Stroop task in a within-subject design to test the neurocognitive effects of two hypnotic suggestions: the perceptual request to focus only on the central letter of the words and the semantic request to observe meaningless symbols. Behavioral results indicated that the two types of suggestions did not alter response time (RT), but both favored more accurate performance compared to the control condition. Both types of suggestions increased sensory awareness and reduced discriminative visual attention, but the perceptual request selectively engaged more executive control of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and the seman...