Spontaneous and suggested posthypnotic amnesia

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Abstract
This investigation was carried out to obtain comparable figures on the prevalence of spontaneous and suggested posthypnotic amnesia. 91 introductory psychology students were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups, and were required to serve as Ss for two consecutive days. The standard induction of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form A was used on the first day, and that of Form B on the second. Suggestibility items were then presented and served to appraise susceptibility and to test for amnesia. For 1 group, spontaneous amnesia was tested on the first day, and suggested amnesia on the second day. This order was reversed for the second group. Using as evidence of amnesia that 4 or fewer of the 10 possible items were recalled, 6 (7%) showed spontaneous amnesia on one of the two days, while a significantly larger number, 32 (35%), showed suggested amnesia. When the groups were subdivided on the basis of susceptibility scores, it was found that there is a marked advantage for suggested amnesia over spontaneous amnesia for highly susceptible hypnotic Ss, while this difference essentially disappears for low Ss. It was further found that (a) suggested amnesia is significantly greater than spontaneous amnesia whether or not one follows the other, (b) there is a small effect of the suggested posthypnotic amnesia for all levels of susceptibility, but this becomes pronounced with susceptibility scores of 6 and above, (c) the highly susceptible hypnotic Ss show no more spontaneous posthypnotic amnesia than do other Ss. While there may be a small amount of spontaneous amnesia, this amount, if any, is small compared with suggested amnesia. It may be that those Es who find a large amount of spontaneous amnesia are giving unintentional suggestions that it is to be found.

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