Hypnosis: Cold ControlMIMIC

Rebecca Semmens Wheeler University of Sussex, March 2011

USUniversity of Sussex

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111111

1Momm

David Rosenthal V.179

(1986,2005) 410 Ildt ,

A conscious mental state is a mental state

of which we are conscious

We are conscious of things, states, etc by

Higher Order Theory

thinking or perceiving thatthey exist

A mental state is conscious when we think

we are in that state. I.e., when we have a

HOT.

Today's talk will cover:

Myths about hypnosis

Higher order thoughts and cold

control

Predictions and tests of cold control

theory

Implementing cold control

Why hypnosis/cold control exists

Myths!

Being hypnotised will make you dancelike a chicken

Highly hypnotisable people are

weak-minded

You can get stuck in a hypnotic

trance

You won't remember anything

Hypnosis is like being asleep

Current Theories of Hypnosis

Dissociation theories

· Executive functions dissociated from contention

scheduling system

Neurophysiological Theories

· Hypnotic responding results from exhaustion of

frontal lobe functions

Socio-cognitive theories

· Response expectancy, imagination, context,

social desirability, motivation, absorption,

fantasy-proneness

Cold control theory

Distinguish first order content

The tree is green'

from second order content:

11 see that the tree is green'

Second order content

is required for mental

states to be

conscious!

lawomlwasmwm..—.111.-

Similarly for intentions....

second order mental state

"I am intending to lift my arm"

Conscious mental state

Consciously aware of

third order mental state

"I think I am intending to lift my arm"

First order mental state

"Lift the arm!"

Unconscious mental state

Conscious of...

Or aware of...

1-1 OTs

Introspectively aware of ...

Note:

"Executive control" (e.g. overcominghabit) can be unconscious on HOT theory

Because we could have an intention

producing the control in principle without

having an HOT about having that,intention. (huh?)

This contradicts the common assumptionin the literature (and our intuition —we

Predictions of cold control

I. Anything that can be done outside of

hypnosis can be done as a hypnoticsuggestion

e.g. executive tasks: contrast theories that imply

a special state of hypnotic hypofrontalityi

II. One cannot do anything as a hypnoticsuggestion one cannot do otherwise

(the difference is just in whether it felt .

involuntary)

Cold Control TheoryZoltan Dienes and Josef Perrier (2007)

Executive control without

awareness

Hypnosis requires inaccurate or absentHOTs

i.e. Create an intention to lift the arm,

but

unaware of intention

"My arm must be rising by itself!"

Predictions of cold control

I. Anything that can be done outside of

hypnosis can be done as a hypnoticsuggestion

e.g. executive tasks: contrast theories that imply

a special state of hypnotic hypofrontalityi

II. One cannot do anything as a hypnoticsuggestion one cannot do otherwise

(the difference is just in whether it felt .

involuntary)

I. Can hypnotic suggestions involve

executive function tasks (exclusion)?

a) Sugges t ion to forge t the number " four" :— overcoming habit but

person c la ims ignorance of what hasbeen excluded => no second orderthough t .

b) Spanos e t a l (1982): highs suggested to forgetcer ta in words (e .g . ca t , boat ) produced those wordsat a below basel ine level in a word associat ion test .4Execu t ive con t ro l because ex i s t ing assoc ia t ionsmust be excluded.

II One cannot do anything as a hypnotic

suggestion one cannot do otherwise

Prima fade counter-example:

People can "see" colours with hypnotic hallucinationthey cannot see with imagination (Kosslyn et al, 2000)

•

S asked to drain or add colour. PET showed changes

in left and right fusiform after hypnotic suggestion butnot after instructions to just imagine (right side only)

Kirsch et al's follow-up (2008)

"Research has also shown that people canrespond to suggestions for perceptualalterations whether or not they have beenhypnotised.The purpose of this study is to assess yourability — both in and out of hypnosis — toexperience coloured stimuli as if theywere grey and grey stimuli as if they were

BUT...

· For hypnotic suggestion subjects asked

"to alter their perception of the stimuli"

·And in the imagination condition

"to remember and visualise"

...so subjects would "not slip into hypnosis"

Clear demand characteristics indicating

which condition should have stronger effect

Subjects rated how much colour they saw on0-l00% scale

And rated how hypnotised they were:(1)normal state(2)relaxed() hypnotized(4) deeply hypnotized

No participant reported slipping into trance duringthe no-hypnosis part of the study (M= 1,4o) and all

Highs can perform the most difficult

suggestions with or without hypnoticinduction!

Drain colour Add colour

q Not hypnotized OHypnotizedi

100% 90%

80% c% 70%

60% or 50% 40% 30%-

20% 10% 0%

How is cold control

implemented?

· Often intent ions , a t l eas tthose mainta ined over severa lminutes , tr igger HOTS ofintending.

· Consider Wegner's whitebear task (1984):

· "Do not think of the conceptof a white bear for 2 minutes!"

White bear task:

Form intention:

"Do not produce representations of white bears!"

If intentions tend to trigger HOTs, one has:

"I am intending not to produce representations ofwhite bears!"

Making the concept of white bears part of aconscious mental s tate .

To not think about the concept of white bearsconsciously, one needs to be able to avoid second

a

W da

Disrupting HOTsSemmens-Wheeler, Dienes and Hutton

Dorsolateral prefrontal

cortex/HOT box(Lau and Passingham, 2co6)

Disrupt the 'HOT box' with rTMS

U Should be harder to create accurate HOTs

ElTherefore should be easier to form intentions

without knowing one has

...easier to experience hypnotic

suggestions??

·Maybe highs are good at avoiding accurateHOTs about intentions?

·Bowers and Woody (1996): (after hypnosis)

highs could NOT think of their favourite car

for 2 minutes more effectively than lows

r w v i t - - - 7 4

Design

24 Mediums (4- 8 on Waterloo)

Five minutes -HZ rTMS to:Da) Left Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

· b) Vertex

· In counterbalanced order

Hypnotist blind to site stimulated

Suggestions

Magnetic hands (easy motor)

Arm levitation (hard motor)

Rigid arm (challenge)

Sweet /sour taste (cognitive)

Measurements:

Fr Subjective experience (0-5)

[N Objective response (experimenter

rated: o100%)

Expectancy (last 12 subjects)

Results

0 No effect on object ive ra t ings

0 Subject ive rat ings increased in the frontal ,compared to the cont ro l condi t ion

E Expectancy is a strong predictor ofhypnot ic response but effect of response

s i te not media ted by expectancy

Does alcohol make people

more hypnoticallysusceptible?

The Effects of alcohol onilo hypnosis

Alcohol inhibits frontal lobe function

We got 16 people drunk, gave another16 people a placebo and then

hypnotised them.

Before each suggestion, we asked them

how much they expected to respond to

it, and how much they felt they had

experienced each one afterwards.

The Effects of alcohol onhypnosis

3 0

2 z ;

2 0

Drunk

· Not drunk

Self-reported Letter f I uency Expectancy Subjective response

drunkenness difference- 5

Alcohol increases hypnotic

responding

Frontal lobe performance was impaired,

according to the results of the letter

fluency task

Expectancy is a strong predictor of hypnotic

response but effect of alcohol was not mediated

by expectancy

People who had alcohol experienced the

hypnotic suggestions more strongly than people

in the placebo condition.

Meditation and Hypnosis

'a) Meditation and hypnosis - frequently regardedas involving similar processes and skills.

1E Meditation: cultivates attention in the form ofmindfulness of the environment and of innermental states.

ID Hypnosis involves:

increased attentional functioning... or

... a lack of awareness of mental

states, specifically of intentions?

Cold Control Theory

NECold control theory summarises the latterposition by claiming the essence of hypnoticresponding is indeed intending to perform(motorically or cognitively) without beingaware of those intentions.

El Hypnosis involves inaccurate higher orderthoughts (1-10Ts) about first order intentions.

Meditation, and mindfulness inparticular, involves cultivating accurate HOTs

Predictions

Highs may be less aware of their mentalstates and less mindful of the environmentand thus be able to perform intentional actswithout being aware of their intention to doso (hypnotic responding).

Highs may have very good attentionalcontrol of their mental states, allowing themto focus on one specific aspect of theinternal or external world and ignore others.

Participants and Procedure

34 (16 male) highs and lows from SussexUniversity.

0 Screened using the Waterloo-Stanford GroupSusceptibility scale (WSGS).

Participants completed a number ofquestionnaires and took part in a meditation taskmeant to measure the accuracy of HOTs ("candletask").

Self-Report Measures

Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS, Tellegen and Atkinson, 1974)

Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS: Brown and Ryan, 2003)

Internal-external encoding style (Lewicki, 2005)

· Thought suppression (WBSI; Wegner and Wenzlaff, 1994)

Cognitive Failures Questionnaire(Broadbent, 1982)

Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability ScaleCrowne and Marlowe 19.0

HOT coupling = number of times consciously

thinking of candle on both tasks together

HOT control = number of times consciously thinking

of candle during concentration task minus during

ignore task

Meditation control = number of times thinking of

candle during concentration task

Ironic control = number of times not thinking of

candle during ignore task (cf Wegner)

Meta-awareness = number of times aware of zoning

ou

Higher Order Thought (HOT)candle meditation task

· Participants were required toeither cultivate (concentrationtask) or avoid (ignore task)awareness of a candle whileconstantly looking directly at it.

· They were probed at randomintervals to report whether theywere thinking of the candle.

1 4

1 2

1 0

8

6

4

0

Low

High

HOT HOT Control Ironic Control MeditationCoupling

Fig. 1: Mean differences between highs and lows on HOT candle meditation task controllhi for social

desirability)

Fig. 2: Mean differences between highs and lows on self-report measures

4

4

After controlling for social desirability, highsscored significantly lower on a measure ofmindfulness than lows (p = .02).

1E Highs scored significantly higher than lows ona measure of cognitive failures (p = .04).

Highs also scored higher on measures ofabsorption, thought suppression, and internalencoding style, yet these differences were notsign! want.

Significant Correlations with Mindfulness

Hypnotisability

Absorption

Internal-External

Thought suppression

Cognitive Failures

HOT Coupling

HOT Control

Meditation

* *

-.62**

32*

.41*

.49*

Summary of Results

Highs:

Less HOT coupling

Poorer meta-awareness

1 7 Fits with the idea that highs have a

poorer tendency/ability to formaccurate HOTs

Conclusions

Highly hypnotisable people are less aware oftheir mental states and of the environment thanlows. That is, they are less mindful.

Contrary to a popular belief, meditation andhypnosis are opposites!

‘ 1 1

Cold control theory gives us a handle on:

How hypnotic responses can be executive

tasks

How expectations seem to have much

larger effects in hypnotic rather thantypical non-hypnotic contexts

Order of difficulty of hypnotic suggestions

Why impairing frontal lobe function should

increase hypnotic response

by does hypnotic behaviour exist?

· It is prevalent cross-culturally

· Largely associated with religious rituals and

spirit possession/divine influence

· If you performed actions, saw images etc that

· 4

1:4111

11te

1) Emerged to support religious beliefs?

Note the need for self deception — you must

cause a behaviour/cognition but not

know that you did so, so that it can be

attributed to divine/spiritual intervention

2) Sociological functions:You can perform

behaviours for which you are not responsible

Lewis (1971, 2003):

Spirit possession serves important functions in

Summary of our findings

0 Impairing frontal lobe function with alcoholorTMS increases hypnotic responding

People who medi ta te regular ly tend to bemore mindfu l than those who don ' t , andpeople who are more mindful tend to be lesshypnot isable

E.g. Socially marginalised people canacquire the gifts necessary for the

spirit tobe exorcised (e.g. wife demanding more

resources from husband). A person

can

acquire the authority of the spirit and rise

to positions of political power.

Very common cross culturally.

Cold control would

be

the ideal way of

fulfilling these

functions as it

ensures

the contextual

appropriateness of

the

relevant

"involuntary"

behaviours and

experiences.