Using hypnosis to disrupt face processing: mirrored-self misidentification delusion and different visual media.

Michael H Connors,Davide Rivolta,Peter W Halligan,Rochelle E Cox,Robyn Langdon,Amanda J Barnier,Max Coltheart

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00361

Abstract

Mirrored-self misidentification delusion is the belief that one’s reflection in the mirror is not oneself. This experiment used hypnotic suggestion to impair normal face processing in healthy participants and recreate key aspects of the delusion in the laboratory. From a pool of 439 participants, 22 high hypnotisable participants (“highs”) and 20 low hypnotisable participants were selected on the basis of their extreme scores on two separately administered measures of hypnotisability. These participants received a hypnotic induction and a suggestion for either impaired (i) self-face recognition or (ii) impaired recognition of all faces. Participants were tested on their ability to recognize themselves in a mirror and other visual media – including a photograph, live video, and handheld mirror – and their ability to recognize other people, including the experimenter and famous faces. Both suggestions produced impaired self-face recognition and recreated key aspects of the delusion in highs. However, only the suggestion for impaired other-face recognition disrupted recognition of other faces, albeit in a minority of highs. The findings confirm that hypnotic suggestion can disrupt face processing and recreate features of mirrored-self misidentification. The variability seen in participants’ responses also corresponds to the heterogeneity seen in clinical patients. An important direction for future research will be to examine sources of this variability within both clinical patients and the hypnotic model.

Highlights

Hypnotic suggestions can temporarily disrupt or alter many cognitive processes (Hilgard, 1965; Kihlstrom, 1985, 2007; Oakley and Halligan, 2009, 2013)
OVERVIEW Both hypnotic suggestions disrupted the ability of highs to recognize themselves in the mirror
When tested on their ability to recognize themselves in other visual media, a proportion of highs given the suggestion for impaired self-face recognition failed to recognize themselves in a photograph, in a live video, and in a handheld mirror

Summary

Introduction

Hypnotic suggestions can temporarily disrupt or alter many cognitive processes (Hilgard, 1965; Kihlstrom, 1985, 2007; Oakley and Halligan, 2009, 2013). For example, specific hypnotic suggestions can cause participants to hallucinate (Szechtman et al, 1998), become blind (Bryant and McConkey, 1999), or selectively ignore particular areas of their visual field (Oakley and Halligan, 2009; Priftis et al, 2011) These experiences can be very compelling – to the point that many participants have difficulty distinguishing the hypnotically suggested alterations from reality (Woody and Szechtman, 2000, 2011; Bryant and Mallard, 2003) – yet are completely reversible (Hilgard, 1965; Kihlstrom, 1985, 2007). The current experiment extends this work by using hypnotic suggestion to disrupt face processing while testing both self-recognition and face recognition across different visual media

Methods

Results

Conclusion