Post-Hypnotic Amnesia as Disrupted Retrieval: A Role-Playing Paradigm

Abstract

Evans and Kihlstrom (1973) have proposed that the phenomenon of “disrupted retrieval” may be an unobtrusive measure of post-hypnotic amnesia not readily explicable in terms of role-playing or task motivational paradigms of hypnotic behaviour. An attempt was made to test the viability of a role-playing explanation of hypnotic disrupted retrieval by giving equivalent role-playing instructions to carry out hypnosis scale suggestions to unhypnotised subjects. When given the instruction to “pretend” to remember on a few items, unhypnotised subjects recalled items in a random and disorganised manner similar to Evans' and Kilstrom's “hypnotised” subjects; when not given this instruction the unhypnotised subjects showed the sequential organised recall of Evan's and Kihlstrom's hypnotically insusceptible subjects. It was concluded that the phenomenon of disrupted retrieval in post-hypnotic amnesia can readily be explained in terms of the role-playing behaviour implicitly demanded of hypnotically susceptible subjects.