Effects of Post-Hypnotic Suggestions, Academic Incentives and Compliance to Authority on Students' Efforts to Remember

Abstract

Fifty volunteer participants were exposed to three experimental conditions. One group was given post-hypnotic suggestions urging them to remember certain types of material to be presented later. The second group was offered academic incentives through extra-credit bonus points. The third group was given no suggestions or incentives but was simply told to remember the materials for experimental purposes. Three types of materials were used: an article, a videotape, and an audiotape. Results indicated that compliance to authority, either hypnotist or teacher, does not supersede the students' own spontaneous efforts to remember whenever the material has no special significance to the students' own needs. Nevertheless, audio materials were harder to remember than multi-modal materials such as reading or audiovisual materials. Confabulations were randomly present in all types of reconstructed memory regardless of experimental conditions and material types.