The Effects of Imagery Vividness and Receptivity on Skill Training Induced Enhancement in Hypnotic Susceptibility

Abstract

Subjects low in hypnotic susceptibility were assigned to either a cognitive skill training treatment designed to enhance susceptibility or to a no treatment control condition. Half of the subjects in each condition had previously attained high scores on an imagery vividness questionnaire and the remainder had obtained low imagery vividness scores. Both the high imagery vividness and the low imagery vividness subjects who received skill training exhibited significantly higher scores than control subjects on the objective ( O) dimensions of two different posttest scales of susceptibility. High imagery vividness skill trained subjects also reported significant increments in the extent to which they experienced their overt responses as involuntary ( OI scores). Low imagery vividness skill trained subjects did not show significant enhancements of OI scores. Among skill trained subjects posttest susceptibility scores were predicted by imagery vividness, attitudes toward hypnosis, and measures of subjects' receptivity toward the training procedures. Theoretical implications are discussed.