Suggested Amnesia and Order of Recall as a Function of Hypnotic Susceptibility and Learning Conditions in Chronic Schizophrenic Patients

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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence on suggested amnesia of 2 variables: hypnotic susceptibility and active versus passive learning. 36 chronic schizophrenic patients, 18 low in hypnotic susceptibility and 18 medium or high in hypnotic susceptibility, were randomly assigned to active or passive learning conditions. These Ss were first tested in a hypnosis condition (Day 1) and were retested in a nonhypnosis condition (Day 2) with the presence of waking suggestion. The results for the hypnosis condition indicated that (a) there were no differences between low susceptible and medium-high susceptible Ss on recall amnesia and reversibility (reversible amnesia); (b) recall amnesia and reversibility were significantly higher (p <.01) in passive than active learning conditions; and (c) in all conditions recall was consistently ordered. The results for the nonhypnosis condition were similar, except that reversibility was not significantly higher in passive than active learning conditions. A secondary analysis which partitioned high susceptible (scoring 8-12) from medium susceptible (scoring 5-7) Ss revealed that reversibility was significantly higher in the high susceptible Ss than in the low susceptible Ss; medium susceptible Ss did not differ from either high or low susceptible Ss. The data suggest that the chronic schizophrenics' failure to recall hypnotic events may involve different mechanisms from those which account for posthypnotic amnesia in normal Ss.

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