Restricted Use of Success Cues in Retrieval During Posthypnotic Amnesia

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Jo u r n a l of Abnorm al Psychology1981, Vol. 90, No. 4, 345-353

Copyright 1981 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0021-843X/81 /9004-0345S00.75

Restricted Use of Success Cues in RetrievalDu ring Posthypnotic Am nesia

Helen M. PettinatiThe Inst i tute of Pennsylvania Hospital and

The Medical College of Pennsylvania

Frederick J. EvansCarrier Foundation and

College of Medicine and Dentistry

of New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School

Emily Carota Orne and Mart in T. OrneThe Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital and University of Pennsylvania

Memory for successful and unsuccessful responses to hypnotic suggestions was

evaluated in partially amnesic subjects and in those subjects with normal for-

getting. Two analyses (N= 278) demonstrated that highly hypnot izable subjectsexperiencing partial posthypnotic amnesia tended to show no selective recall for

their successes or fa i lures dur ing amnesia, whereas the rema inder of the subjectsshowed definite selective recall of hypnot ic success posthypnot ica l ly. These find-

ings lend support to the hypothesis put for th by Evans and Kihlstrom that post-

hypnot ic amnesia involves a disruption of memory organization and suggests that

the phenomenon may be mediated by a restriction in the use of normally employedretrieval cues.

The inabil i ty to remember material hasbeen a source of experimental investigationsince the t ime of Ebbinghaus (1885/1913).Forgetting is a continuous cognitive processthat typically occurs outside of one's aware-ness, and a wide range of individual differ-ences in the ease of forgetting can be ob-served. C ogn itive processes can be employedto ma ximize ( intentional) remembering.Parallel cognitive processes to ensure for-getting of overlearned material have not asyet been determined.

Several investigators have been system-

This paper is based on a dissertation completed bythe first author at The Medical College of Pennsylvaniain par t ia l fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoraldegree. The research was supported in part by GrantNH19156 from the National Institute of Men ta l Heal th,Public Heal th Service, by the Insti tute for ExperimentalPsychiatry, and by the Car r i e r Foundat ion.

The authors would l ike to t hank David F. Dinges, A.Gordon Hammer , Robert A. Karl in , John F. Kihlst rom,Leo Madow, Ka r l W . Scholz, Lauren ce H . Snow, Wi l -liam M. W a i d , an d Stua r t K. Wilson for their cogent

comments, arid special t hanks go to Rebecca Gunsior,Helen Metzler, Julia Staats, Cynthia Giba t , JoanneRosenberg, Dona Frank l in , and Roger Shull fo r theirtechnical assistance.

Requests for reprints should be addressed to HelenM. Pettinati, who is now at the Carrier Foundation,Division of Research, Belle Mead, Ne w Jersey 08502.

atically studying active forgetting "o n cue"(Bjork , 1970; Epstein & Wilder, 1972; Reit-man, Mal in , Bjork , & Higman, 1973; She-bilske, Wilder, & Epstein, 1971; Weiner& Reed, 1969), where subjects are directedto forget part of the input (word list) or toremember only part of the input. Subjectstypically do no t report th e "to-be-forgotten"material af ter the cue to forget has beengiven, even when challenged. Bjork (1970)

hypothesized that tw o interrelated processesoccur: (a ) Forgetting occurs because of lack

of rehearsal of the target material once thesubject has been informed that it will not benecessary to remember specific material, and(b) by some cognitive process th e targetmaterial is segregated from th e mater ia l ac-cessible to recall. Indeed, Epstein (1972) has

argued that forgett ing occurs throu gh ahighly selective memory search where "to-be-forgotten" and "to-be-remembered" m a-terial are equal ly available in memory, butdifferences in accessibility exist (see Tulving

& Pearlstone, 1966, for a fu rth er clarifica-tion of this distinction). More recently, Gei-selman (Note 1) has postulated a thirdmechanism of retrieval inhibition, wherebythe cue to forget can inhibit access routesto episodic memory traces.

345



346 P E T T IN A T I , E V A N S , O R N E , A N D O R N E

Although th e directed forgetting para-digm differs substantially from experimen-ta l ly induced posthypnotic amnesia (seeKihlstrom, Note 2, for a detailed description

of th e basic differences between th e para-digms), the study of tempo rary am nesia dueto hypnotic suggestion involves the abilityto forget ma terial on cue, and the theoreticalconstructs proposed by the investigators ofdirected forgetting may be useful in inves-tigating those mechan isms involved in post-hypnotic amnesia. Intent ional forget t ing,however, is most dramatic when forgottenmemories can be subseq uen tly recovered atwill, and the reversibility of amnesia is a

pr imary fea ture of the posthypnotic am nesiaparad igm.

After undergoing a hypnotic session ofsuggestions for motor and cognitive activi-ties, subjects are given a hyp no tic suggestionto forget everything that occurred duringhypnosis unti l the suggestion is canceled bya prearranged cue. Hypnosis is terminatedand subjects are asked to recall what justoccurred du r ing hypnos is . The majori ty ofsubjects report most of what happened dur-in g hypnosis , indicat ing that they are notresponding to the amnesia suggestion. How-ever, a few subjects experience difficulty inremembering, as indexed by their subse-quent subjective report (Evans, 1980; Hull,

1933; K ihlstrom & E vans, 1979; Orne, 1966;Spanos & Bodorik, 1977), and either reportnothing or par t ia l informat ion.

Part ia l report ing is counterexpectational( total rather than partial forgetting con-

forms to expectational demands), and sub-jects with partial recall due to the amnesiasuggestion show different reporting charac-teristics from subjects with incomplete, no r-mal memory. Explanat ions of posthypnoticamnesia in terms of compliance to experi-mental demands have not been successful .For example, attempts to breach hypnoticamnesia by means of demands fo r honestygenerally fail to work (Kihlstrom, Evans,Orne , & Orne, 1980; Sarbin & Coe, 1979).

Moreover, unlike subjects simulating hyp-nosis, partially amnesic subjects may re-member information learned during hyp-nosis but do n ot kn ow where they acquiredthis info rma tion (Evans, 1979). In addition,mater ial remembered during th e amnesia

suggestion may be disorganized (Evans &Kihlstrom, 1973; Kihlstrom & Evans, 1979;Spanos & Bodorik , 1977), compared withreports representing normal forgetting. In -

deed, when Spanos, Radtke-Bodorik, andStam (1980) asked simulators to fake partialamnesia, their meager memory reports weresimilar to individuals with norm al forget ting:The reports w ere significantly more orga-nized than reports of subjects with partialamnesia. Finally, subjects with part ia l am -nesia will also report substantially morema terial when the am nesia suggestion is can-celed (Kihlstrom & Evans, 1976; Nace,Orne, & H am m er, 1974; Orne, 1966). This

subsequent recovery of material, termed"reversibility of amnesia," provides an indexof degree of original learning, that is, thatth e memories had been encoded and wereonly temporar i ly forgot ten. The reversibilityof the amnesia legitimizes this paradigm inthe study of active forgetting.

Given tha t the phenomenon of amnesiacan be at t r ibuted to factors other than merecompliance, several investigators (Evans,1980; Hilgard, 1977; Kihlstrom, 1977; Spa-nos & B odorik, 1 977) have theorized abou tth e possible cognitive mechanisms tha t m aybe responsible for the temporary memoryloss. One explanation for these findings isthat retrieval is disrupted and that limited

use of certain retrieval strategies occurs(Evans & Kihlstrom, 1973). This notion,based on the study of temporal sequence ofmemories, led to a search for other retrievalcues employed by no na mn esic subjects that

may be used differently by amnesic subjects.One such cue is success, in terms of the sub-ject's responses to the hypnotic suggestions.Although there are several alternative waysof unders tanding the cognitive process as-sociated with a success event, th e experienceof success can easily be conceptualized as aretrieval cue. For example, when one asksan individual whether he/she w as able to behypnotized, he/she immediately begins re-counting those suggestions that were easily

responded to. "Pulling out" those successevents can be likened to Shiffr in 's (1970)construct of a search se t where successevents would comprise th e set, and a re-trieval search th rough memory via successcues would result in success events being re -



RESTRICTED USE OF SUCCESS CUES 347

ported. The disruption in retrieval hypoth-

esized to exist during posthypnotic amnesia

may be better understood using Shiffrin'ssearch set construct, whereby a restriction

in search occurs during amnesicstates. Thisrestricted focus in memory search is com-

patible with descriptions of a narrowed focus

in attention accompanying the hypnoticstate itself (Krippner & Bindler, 1974).

In previous work, Pettinati and Evans(1978) found that without regard to amne-

sia, subjects typically remember more of

their successful hypnotic experiences andfewer of their unsuccessful ones after hyp-

nosis is completed—a rinding they have

found to be compatible with th e results ofthe traditional selective recall literature

where ego-involved individuals tended to re-member success events better than failed

ones (see Butterfield, 1964, for a review ofthis literature). Derived from th e traditionalselective recall studies by Rosenzweig (1938)that investigated repression, studies by Hil-gard and Hommel (1961) and O'Connell

(1966) have shown that predictions ofrepression based onrecall of success and fail-ure in hypnotic subjects with amnesia cannotbe borne out. However, a cognitive modelwhere success cues may be useful as retrievalaids implies a method of memory organi-zation that has not been systematically

studied.

The present study investigated the use of

success cues in the verbal memory reports

of partially amnesic and nonamnesic sub-

jects following a suggestion fo r posthypnotic

amnesia. If posthypnotic amnesia involvesa restriction in the use of certain retrievalcues, it would be predicted that amnesic in -dividuals would recall fewer success events

during amnesia compared to nonamnesic in-

dividuals.

Method

Subjects

ipated in any experiments involving hypnosis. Selective

recall was evaluated for 278 subjects.'

Materials

A tape-recorded version of the Harvard Group Scaleof Hypnotic Susceptibility: Form A (HOSHSiA; Shor

& Orne, 1962)2

was used to assess hypnotic respon-siveness. Th e HGSHS:A lasts SO min . and i t consists ofan induction of hypnosis (suggestions fo r head lowering

and eye closure), followed by suggestions fo r hand low-

ering, arm immobilization, finger locking, arm rigidity,

moving both hands together, communication inhibition,

hallucination, eye catalepsy, a posthypnotic suggestion,

and a suggestion for complete posthypnotic amnesia.

Procedure

Following a brief discussion of hypnosis to establishrapport, the HGSHS:A was administered. The standard-

ized posthypnotic amnesia suggestion of the HGSHS:Aaccompanied by instructions fo r canceling or reversing

the amnesia was given near the end of hypnosis:

R em ain deeply relaxed and pay close attention to what

I am going to tell you next. In a moment I shall begin

counting backwards from 20 to 1. You will gradually

wake up, but for most of the count you will still remain

in the state you are now in. By the time I reach "5" you

will open your eyes, but you will not be fu l ly aroused.

When I get to "1"youwill be fully alert, in your normal

state of wakefulness. You probably will have th e impres-sion that you have slept because you will have difficultyin remembering all the things I have told you and al lth e things you did or felt. In fact, you will find it to beso much of an effort to recall any of these things that

yo u will have no wish to do so. It will be much easier

simply to forget everything until I tell you that you can

remember. You will remember nothingof what ha s hap-

pened until I say to you: "Now you can remember ev-

erything!" You will not remember anything until then.

(Shor & Orne, 1962, p. 11 )

After th e termination of hypnosis and testing of theposthypnotic suggestion to touch the ankle, amnesia was

tested (3 min. allowed for the amnesia recall period):

Now . . . please write down briefly in y our ownwords

a list of the things that happened since you began looking

at the target. You should not go into much detail here

A total of 349 male and female college student vol-

unteers were recruited for "experiments utilizing hyp-

nosis." Hypnotic sessions were conducted in groups of

varying size (up to 30 paid subjects) in the off-campus

laboratory. None of the subjects had previously partic-

1Only 278 of the 349 subjects (81%) could be eval-

uated for their recall of hypnotic success and failure

during amnesia: Nine subjects had total amnesia (no

recall); 21 subjects recalled all of the nine relevant sug-

gestions (no bias possible); 23 subjects either were suc-

cessful at all the hypnotic suggestions or failed every-

thing; 18 subjects failed to indicate their response to one

or more of the suggestions when they completed the self-scoring response booklet of the Harvard Group Scale

of Hypnotic Susceptibility: Form A (HGSHSA).2

The existing scales are highly reliable, internally

consistent, and valid (Hilgard, 1965; Shor & Orne,

1963).



348 PETTINATI, EVANS , ORNE, AND ORNE

on th e part icula r ways in which yo u responded, bu tplease try to mention al l of the different things that yo uwere asked to do. (Shor & Orne, 1962, p. 1 1 )

After th e standard amnesia recall test, a second test

of amnesia was introduced into the procedure. One ofthree different ran dom ly assigned in structio nal sets that

had been designed by Kihlstrom et al. (1980)3 to en-

courage full disclosure of all unreported mater ia l wasused: a stron g challenge to recall, a request for honesty,and retest instructions. There were 11 8 subjects whowere instructed to try very hard to ment ion all of wh a toccurred in hypno sis (challenge con dition) . There were116 subjects who were told that it was vital that theyput d own everything that they remembered of whathappened during hypnosis (honesty condi t ion) . Therewere 115 subjects who were given a retest with no special

ins t ruct ions (retest condition) .

Regardless of the specific instructions given at thesecond test of amnesia , all subjects were allowed 3 ad-di t iona l m i n . to recall more material . After 6 m in . o famnes ia had elapsed (two recall tests), all 349 subjectswere given the prearranged cue to.cancel the amnesiasuggestion.

Reversibi li ty of amnesia w as tested using a sl ight lymodified version of HGSHSA (3 min. a l lowed for therevers ibi li ty recall period):

All right, now listen carefully to my words. Now you

ca n remember everything. Please . . . write down a listof everything you now remember that happened sinceyo u began look ing at the target. You should not go intom u c h detail here on the part icula r ways in which yo uresponded, bu t please try to m e nt ion al l the th ings yo uwere asked to do. (Modif ied f rom Shor & Orne, 1962,

p. 11)

Classifying hypnotizability. All of the suggestionsexcept for the one for posthypnotic amnesia (11 sug-gestions) were scored from th e self-reported behaviorsaccording to H O S H S I A standard procedures. (Self-reportscoring and objective scoring by an independent judgewere repor ted by Shor an d Orn e, 1963, to correla te .88.)Subjects w ho passed 4 or fewer of the 11 suggestionson HGSHS:A were classified as low hypn otiza ble subjects;

subjects passing 5-7 suggestions were classified as me-d i um hypnot izable ; and subjects passing 8 or more sug-gestions were classified as highly h y pno t iza b l e .

Classifying posthypnotic amnesia. Posthypnoticamnes ia was scored by standard procedures indepen-dent ly by two trained scorers. The occasional discrep-ancy w as resolved by a th i rd scorer. The standard cri-terion of passing amnesia is recall ing three or fewer ofthe suggestions during the amnesia recall test.

4How-

ever, there a re signif icant problems with using this cri-terion for determining an amn esia experience. The sub-jects who a re probably having the most completeamnesia experience possible recall none of the events,

and so the ir memory reports cannot be assessed fo r cluesc lar i fying th e process of amnesia . Only those memoryreports that include at least one suggestion (partial re-

cal l) can be evaluated for memory selectivity. Yet, re-ca l l ing only one, two, or three suggestions may also bean indication of poor motivation, poor memory, or fal l ingasleep du rin g the session. On the other ha nd, there a re

undoubtedly varying degrees of partia l amnesia whereremembering only four or five suggestions may also in-dicate a part ia l response to the amnesia experience.

A nu mbe r of investigators (K ihlstrom & Evans, 1976;Nace, Orne , & H am mer , 1974; Orne, 1966; Pettin ati ,

1979) have suggested tha t it is possible to distin gu ishan amnesia experience due to hypn otic suggestion fro mmere forgetting when there is substantia l recovery ofmemory a f te r the cue to cance l th e amnesia suggestionis given. With th e reversibility criterion there is confir-mation that the to-be-recalled material was ini t ial ly en -coded so that a l terna tive explan ation s for meager recall,such as poor motivation, poor memory, or fal l ing asleep,

are n o longer tenable. In the present study , amn esia wasdefined as present on ly if revers ibility occurred. Basedon empirical evidence (Kihlstrom & Evans, 1976), re-

versibility was defined as recall ing at least two previ-ously unreported hypnotic suggestions after the cue to

lift the amnesia. Thus, amnesic subjects were those re-cal l ing two or more addition al hypn otic suggestions afterthe cue to cancel amnesia was given, regardless o f thei rini t ia l recall during th e amnesia tests.

More m aterial m igh t be recalled after amn esia hasbeen canceled because of the mere passage of time(Erdelyi & Kleinbard, 1978), unrelated to the hypnoticamnesia suggestion, and some subjects wil l inevi tab lybe misclassified by re ly ing only on a reversibil ity cri-terion. Consequently, a second analysis w as performedwhere amnesic subjects were further selected using theadditional criterion of recall ing three or fewer sugges-tions during amnesia together with th e cr i te r ion of sub-

sequent reversibility. The differences between the twoanalyses sho uld be negligible, since the reversibil ity cri-terion has been heralded as a more accurate one. How-ever, because of the uncerta in ty that still exists in thefield in using only reversibility as the criterion of am-nesia, th e second analys is seemed essential.

Measuring selective recall. Selective reca l l dur ingthe amn esia period w as evaluated by us ing the RecallComparabil ity Index (RCI). The RCI is an adapta t ionof traditional selective recall indices to suit the hypnoticsituation in which th e a m o u n t of success an d fa i lu rediffer from ind iv idua l to ind iv idua l , and the n u m b e rrecalled is directly manipulated by the request for am-

nesia. This index avoids potential bias present in pre-vious selective recall indices (see Pettinati & Evans,1978, for the rationale of the RCI).

5

3Al th oug h Kih l s t rom et al . (1980) also had a four th

gro u p with i n s t ruc t ions to recall in order, these instruc-t ions were not employed in this study because of thepossible interference between the use of temporal cuesand success cues.

4 The recall of the two induction items as well as thesuggestion fo r posthypno t ic amnesia are no t consideredin th e assessment of amnesia .

5

The RC I is an im pro veme nt over several other in-dices tha t have been used by other investigators or couldbe used. The choice of an index in this setting posesdifficulties because of the corre la t ion ( ranging from— . 3 to — . 6 ) typ ica l ly found between number of sugges-tions recalled and number of suggestions passed suc-cessfully, and the desirabi l i ty of comparing lo w hyp-




The proportion of hyp no tical ly successful experiencesremembered during posthypnot ic amnesia (first com-pone n t of the index) is compared to the proportion ofhypnotical ly successful experiences not remembered, o rforgotten, durin g posthypno tic amnesia (second com-

ponent of the index). The formula is:

No. passed recalled No. passed not recalledRCI =

Total no. recalled Total no. not recalled

If no selective recall for success or failu re occurs, thesetwo proport ions should be equal , an d each proportionshould reflect th e proportion of items passed out of then in e re levant HGSHS:A hypnosis suggestions. For ex-ample, if a subject passes six of the nine relevant items(o r tw o thirds) , then tw o th i rds of the items recalleddu r in g amnesia and two thirds of the items forgottenduring amnesia should be successful ones— the latter

tw o proportions comprise th e RCI. If both proportionsare equal , the RCI is zero, indicating n o selective bias.

Howe v e r , if more successful items are remembered thanwould be expected based on w h a t was actua l ly passed,

then a positive num erical index results, indicating a biasfo r remem bering successful hypn otic experiences. Anegative index indicates a bias fo r remembering failedhypno tic experiences. The index can range from +1.00to -1.00. A n RCI w as calculated fo r each of 278 sub-jects o n those items that were remembered only d u r i n gthe amnesia tests.

Results

Sample Characteristics

The mean H G S H S : A score was 6.48 (com-parable with normative data ci ted in Shor& Orne, 1963). The mean number recalleddur ing am nesia (two tests) w as 5.27, and themean number reversed on the third recalltest w as .88. Tw enty-two percent of the sam-ple passed th e reversibility criterion andwere classified as amnesic.

No one type of instruction was more ef-fective t h a n any other in eliciting recall onthe second amnesia test, and the followinggeneral characteristics of the three subgro upswere similar: mean H G S H S : A , mean numberrecalled du rin g the first, second, a nd thirdmemory tests, the percentage of subjectswho passed standardized amnesia, and thepercentage of subjects who passed revers-ibility (for a detailed comparison, see Pet-

notizable nonamnesic subjects (few successes) with highhypnotizable amnesic subjects (few failures). The ra-

t ionale fo r considering several possible indices ha s beendiscussed elsewhere (Pettinati & Evans, 1978), wherei t was shown that conceptually, statistical ly, and em-pirical ly the RCI was a part icula r ly sui tab le index fo rthis application.

tinati, 1979). No significant differences werefound among the three instructional sets.Thus, th e groups were combined into onelarge sample for the assessment of selective

recall. The mean RCI for the total samplewas .16, a significantly positive index,f(277) = 8.00, p < .0005, indicating that ingeneral subjects tended to remember theirhypnotic successes, as opposed to their fail-ures,

Analysis 1

Differences in selective recall between am-nesic and nonamnesic subjects were ana-lyzed using a 3 X 2 analysis of variance(ANOVA; method of unw eighted means): Thefactors were hypnotizability (high, medium,l o w ) and amnesia (pass or fail reversibility).Level of hypn otizability must be consideredin any analysis of posthypnotic amnesia be -cause of its po tential influence on the extentand quality of the amnesic experience. Fig-ure 1 illustrates the results of this an alysis.Neither main effect was significant.

Although the interaction between level ofhypnotizability and amnesia was not signif-icant, F(2, 272) = 1.14 it can be observedfrom the figure that a non linear relationship,albeit a small one, between hypnotizabilityand amnesia fo r selective recall probablydoes exist, and more direct measures to de-termine the extent of this relationship werenecessary.

6Therefore, comparisons in selec-

tive recall of amnesic versus nonamnesicsubjects were made fo r each level of hyp-

notizability so that hypnotic success wasmatched for each comparison. The numberof available successful events and the levelof mo tivation to com ply wou ld thus be equiv-alent in com paring amnesic w ith nonam nesicsubjects. As might be anticipated from Fig-ure 1, highly hypnotizable amnesic subjects(RCI = .03) showed a significant deficit,f (97) = 1.89, p < .05, one-tailed, in their re-call of hypn otic success when com pared with

6Some of the subgroups include only a very few sub-

jects, rendering th e A N O V A less reliable, even when usin ga nonor thogonal method of analysis. Hays (1963) jus-tines making statistical comparisons in such a case

where tests of specific com parisons m ay clar ify the re-sults and override the need for a more general A N O V A .



350 PETTINATI, EVANS, ORNE, A N D O R N E

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High Medium Low

HYPNOT IZAB IL ITY

Figure 1. The mean Recall Comparability Indices(RCI) fo r amnesic an d nonamnesic subjects with respectto level of hypnotizabil i ty.

highly hypnotizable nonamnesic subjects

(RCI = .18). The RCI of .03 for the hyp-notizable amnesic subjects does not differsignificantly from a zero index indicatingthat highly hypnotizable amnesic subjects

show no selective recall of either hypnoticsuccess or failure. For the groups of subjectswith lower levels of hypnotizability, RCIs

were all significantly greater than zero, in -dicating selective recall of success events.(Me d iu m hypnotizability: RCI fo r amne-sic =.18 and nonamnesic = .15; low hyp-notizability: RCI for amnesic = .21 andnon-amnesic = .23). Thus, the subgroup ofhighlyhypnot izable and amnesic subjects was theonly one of the six subgroups who did notshow a significant tendency to recall theirsuccessful hypnotic experiences.

7

Analysis 2

From th e group of partially amnesic sub-jects (those with reversibility), subjects were

specially selected if they recalled only threeor fewer of the hypnotic suggestions duringthe entire 6-min. amnesia period. This grouprepresented a more extreme method for clas-sifying a subject as amnesic, because tw ocriteria had to be met (standardized amnesiaand reversibility). Similarly, from the groupof nonamnesic subjects (those failing re-versibility), subjects were specially selectedif they recalled at least four suggestions dur-in g the 6-min. amnesia period. This grouprepresented th e most extreme criteria fo rclassifying a subject as nonamnesic, becausethere were two criteria to fail (no standard-

ized deficit during th e amnesia recall periodand no reversibility).Small cell sizes precluded a three-factor

A N O V A in exploring th e relationship amonghypnotizabil i ty , number recalled, and re-versibility. However, an assessment of thetw o groups of selected subjects w ho eitherpassed tw o objective criteria of amnesia (8 %of 27 8 subjects) or who failed both of theobjective criteria of amnesia (72%) w as pos-sible. For this analysis, subjects were ex-

cluded if they passed one criterion of am-nesia bu t failed the other.Figure 2 presents the RCIs for the spe-

cially selected subgroups of amnesic andnonamnesic subjects, matching level of hyp-notizability (level of success). The mediumand low hypnotizable subjects were com-bined into one group because previous work(Pettinati & Evans, Note 3, as well as Anal-ysis 1 above) has shown medium and lowhypnotizable subjects to behave similarly in

their selective recall of hypnotic success dur-in g amnesia. The interaction that isapparent

in the figure was tested using a 2 X 2 (Am-nesia X Hypnotizability) nonorthogonal AN-O V A design an d w as significant, F(l, 219) =4.55, p < .05, indicating that amnesic and

nonamnesic subjects differ in their selectiverecall of success depending on level of hyp-notic success. The highly hypnotizable am -nesic subjects showed no evidence of selec-tive recall for success or failure, and the apriori comparison between highly hypnotiz-

7 Because no significant interaction was found, it wasfelt that a replication of these f indings was desirable.These results were subsequently replicated in a sampleof 569 college student volunteers (Pettinati, 1979). Thistime, however, th e interaction between hypnotizabilityand amnesia was significant, F(2, 444) = 3.03, p < .05.



RESTRICTED USE OF SUCCESS CUES 3 51

able subjects with amnesia (RCI = — .06)and those without amnesia (RCI = .19)yielded a significant difference in the pre-dicted direction, t(13) = 2.55, p < .01, one-

tailed. These tw o groups of highly hypn otiz-able subjects did not differ in the a m o u n tof success achieved during hypnosis.

8The

medium and low hypnotizable subjects re-called hy pn otic success events to the samedegree regardless of whether they were de-fined as amnesic (t = .86, ns). (Neither ma ineffect was significant in the two-factor AN-OVA.)

Discussion

These analyses provide a way to distin-guish amnesia from normal forget t ing byusing qu alitative aspects of memory reports(recall of hypnotic success) in contrast to aquantitative measurement of memory loss.Qualitative differences may represent a dif-ferent cognitive processing that occurs whenresponding to the suggestion to forget.

The results of this experiment lend sup-port to the hypothesis of restricted memory

search during posthypnotic amnesia. Thehighly hypnotizable amnesic subjects, whowould be the most lik ely candidates fo r hav-ing an amnesic experience, do not selectivelyrecall their successful hypnotic experienceslike the other subjects do. This finding doesnot represent a robust statistical effect (in-deed, it should not be expected that amnesiasuggestions should have profound effects ina laboratory situation). Nevertheless, basedon Evans and Kihlstrom's (1973) related

finding of restricted use of temporal orderingin memory reports when contrasted to thoseof nonamnesic subjects, our finding of re-duced recall of hypnotic success by amnesicsubjects, in contrast to nonamnesic subjects,suggests that success cues, too, may be re-stricted in memory search.

No Selective Recall in Amnesic Subjects

The reduced selective recall found only inhighly hypn otizable amn esic subjects is mo reappropriately seen as a result of the mech-anism of amnesic processes than of normalmemory processing. Other explanations ofthe deficits are less plausible. For example,the von Restorff effect (1933), in which

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Figure 2. The mean Recall Comparabil ity Indices(RCI) fo r selected amnesic subjects and selected non-amn esic subjects with respect to level of hyp no tizab ility.

failed tasks would stand out in contrast andperhaps interfere in some way with th e normof recalling success, cannot account for theresults, Although the failures of the highlyhypnotizable (and the successes of the lowhypn otizable) subjects m ight stand ou t, there

would be no reason wh y, within the level ofhigh hypnotizability, amnesic and nonam-nesic subjects should differ in their report-ing. The amnesia variable is important.Whereas, the nonamnesic highly hypnotiz-able subjects mostly recall successes, theamnesic highly hypnotizable subjects selectneither successful nor unsuccessful events intheir reduced recall. It should be noted, how-ever, that equat ing quant i ty of success andfailure (matching level of hypnotizability)

cann ot take into account subjective, affective

8There was no difference in the HGSHSIA scores fo r

highly hypnotizable amnesic subjects (M = 8.90, SD =

.88, «= 10) and for highly hypnotizable nonamnesicsubjects (M = 8.78, SD = .72, n - 65).



35 2 P E T T I N A T I , E V A N S , O R N E , A N D O R N E

experience that often accompanies success.Ongoing research is assessing subjective in -volvement and affect, while carrying out thesuggestions rather than th e objective assess-ment of success and failure.

9

Subjects With Less Hyp notizability

On th e other hand, i t was found tha tmerely responding to the amnesia suggestionby showing reduced recall and subsequentreversibility was not sufficient to produce thequal i ta t ive differences in memory report ing(reduced selective recall of hypnotic suc-cess). Subjects with lower hypnotizability

scores who recalled less and who also showedevidence fo r reversibility did not report theirfew memor ies in a quali tat ively differentway from nonamnesic subjects. One had tobe highly hypnotizable fo r this to be the case.The fa ct th at highly responsive subjects wereresponding to the suggestion for amnesiadifferently from relatively unresponsive sub-jects m ay mean that un hypn otizable subjectsare merely t runca t ing their full memory re-port (Pet t inat i & Evans , Note 4). It could

be that their strategy for becoming amnesicwas to merely stop th e norm al memory pro-cess (not necessarily intentionally), in con-trast to a different, more complex strategyused by truly amnesic subjects to forget.

In addition, the issue of defining amnesiais pert inent . Although the term amnesiameans fai lure to recall in a generic sense, itis clear that this definition is too liberal indist inguishing an amnesia response fromn o r m a l forget t ing. R ather , it is our in tent to

define posthypnotic amnesia using criteriatha t will reflect tha t an individual is respond-in g to the am nesia suggestion. T his was doneby defining amnesia in terms of its subse-quen t reversal. However, recovery of mate-r ial , a l though an objective indication of thelifting of amnesia, may also be due to factorsunrelated to amnesia, such as an initial ver-bal inhibition, behavioral compliance, fa -t igue, confusion, or poor motivat ion. It isqu ite possible that some subjects with lowerhypnotizabil i ty may be showing increasedremembering after a delay for any one ofthese reasons.

In summary, the evidence shows thathighly hypnotizable amnesic subjects report

memories in a quali tat ively different, yetpredictable way. W hether these differencesreflect amnesic processes, relate to norma lmemory processes, or have to do with theinitial subjective perception of experiencestill remains to be seen. The potential for

understanding significant loss of memorythrough clar i fying the phenom enon of post-hypno tic amnesia m erits co ntinu ed investi-gation.

9Coe, B augher , K r i m m , an d Smith (1976) asked sub-

jects to rate each su ggestion (af ter the hyp no tic sessionwas over) on a 1-5 scale for "emotional tone." However ,they had no procedure fo r classifying subjects as am-nesic and only looked at comparisons between high,

medium, and low hypn otizable subjects.

Reference Notes

1. Geiselman, R. E. Storage and retrieval mechanismsin directed forgett ing . In L. M. Cooper (Chair), Post-hypnotic amnesia, directed forgetting, and memo ry.Symposium presented at the 8 6th an nu al conventionof the American Psychological Association, Toronto,

Ontar io , Canada, August 1978.2. K ihlstrom, J . F. Instructed forgett ing, hypno tic and

nonhypnotic. In L. M. Cooper (C hair), Posthypnoticamnesia, directed forgetting, and mem ory. Sympo-

sium presented at the 86th a nn ua l convention of theAmer ican Psychological Association, Toronto, On-tar io , Canada, August 1978.

3. Pettinati , H. M ., & Evans , F. J. Posthypnotic am-

nesia and the reduced selective recall of success.Paper presented at the meeting of the Society fo rClinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Asheville, N.C.,October 1978.

4. Pettinati , H. M., & Evans, F. J. Selective processingduring posthypnotic amnesia. Paper presented at the86th an nu al convent ion of the American Psycholog-ical Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August1978,

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Received December 22, 1980Revision received March 30, 1981 •

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Restricted Use of Success Cues in Retrieval During Posthypnotic Amnesia

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