Is a capacity for negative priming correlated with hypnotizability?: A preliminary study

Abstract

Hypnotic responsiveness may depend upon the ability to inhibit the irrelevant stimuli that evoke responses that are incompatible with current goals (or the mapping between an irrelevant/disruptive stimulus and its response) in order to actively maintain task-relevant information. In a simple correlation design, the authors investigated the relationship between cognitive inhibition (negative priming) and hypnotic responsiveness. A statistically significant correlation was obtained between the extent of negative priming (measured in time latency) and hypnotic responsiveness (r = .491). Limitations of this preliminary study and implications for future work are discussed.