Our research used the Deese/Roediger and McDermott paradigm [1] to examine the effects of hypnosis on memory. The paradigm yielded a high rate of false recognition (>.70), regardless of whether participants were hypnotized or not. Hypnotized (N = 21) and non-hypnotized (N = 20) participants reported high false recognition rates and were very confident in their remembrances, independent of their recognition accuracy and their level of hypnotic suggestibility (medium vs. high). Although our results provide no support for the proposition that hypnosis is a viable memory enhancement procedure, hypnosis did not impair recognition above and beyond the non-hypnotic condition.
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