Journal of Abnormal Psychology Copyright 1992 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1992, Vol. 101, No. 1,192-199 0021-843X/92/S3.00

Hypnosis, Reporting Bias, and Suggested Negative Hallucinations

Nicholas P. Spanos, Cheryl A. Burgess,
Patricia A. Cross, and Geoffrey MacLeod
Carleton University, Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada

We examined the role of reporting bias in hypnotic negative hallucinations by using a paradigm in
which reporting bias was assessed independently of perceptual change. In Experiment 1, highly
hypnotizable subjects reported significant loudness reductions when tested for hypnotic deafness.
Later, however, these subjects biased their reported loudness reductions in the absence of percep-
tual change, and their reporting bias scores were almost as large as their hypnotic deafness reports.
Subjects also biased their ratings of strategy use. In Experiment 2, ratings of blindness given in
response to a hypnotic negative visual hallucination suggestion were significantly correlated with
reporting bias scores obtained in this paradigm. Although hypnotic blindness and hypnotic deaf-
ness correlated significantly, the partial correlation between these variables was nonsignificant
when reporting bias scores were statistically controlled. Theoretical implications are discussed.

For more than a century, hypnosis has been associated with
reports of dramatic, suggestion-induced changes in memory
and perception. In most cases, however, the only available in-
dexes of suggestion-induced experiential change have been ei-
ther verbal report or other behaviors under subjects' direct vol-
untary control. Some researchers have used indirect indexes of
perceptual and memory change. For example, response to de-
layed auditory feedback has been used to index hypnotic deaf-
ness (e.g., Sutcliffe, 1961). The results of these studies have typi-
cally indicated no evidence for perceptual or memory change
on the indirect indexes despite subjects' reports of experiencing
suggested changes.
One interpretation of such findings is that hypnotic sugges-
tions rarely if ever produce actual changes in perception or
memory, but instead induce subjects to compliantly bias their
reports in line with suggested demands (Sutcliffe, 1961; Wag-
staff, 1981,1986). Compliant responding is biased responding,
and it may be said to occur when subjects report experiences
that they did not have or exaggerate experiences that they did
have, in terms of situational demands (Orne & Scheibe, 1964;
Wagstaff, 1981). Response biases of this kind may reflect either
demand-induced lying or demand-induced retrospective rein-
terpretation of experience. In either case, demand-induced re-
sponse biases reflect misdescriptions motivated by the desire to
meet role expectations (Spanos, 1991; Wagstaff, 1981).
Although the compliance hypothesis is an old one, it has
failed to gain general acceptance for at least two reasons. First,
a number of investigators have suggested that indirect indexes
of perceptual and memory functioning do not validly reflect
subjects' experiences. According to this hypothesis, for exam-
ple, subjects might show at least partial hearing reduction in
This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Nicholas P. Spanos, Department of Psychology, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada.
192
response to deafness suggestions despite behaving in a "non-
deaf" manner during delayed auditory feedback (Jones &
Flynn, 1989).
A second and more fundamental difficulty with the compli-
ance hypothesis stems from the lack of a methodology with
which to assess reporting bias independently of perceptual expe-
rience. For instance, reports of reduced pain or hearing after
suggestion may to some extent reflect both actual perceptual
change and demand-induced reporting bias. In the absence of
some means for separating biased responding from perceptual
change, investigators have been free to accept or reject sugges-
tion-induced biased responding as a hypothesis on the basis of
personal preference rather than data.
Recently, we developed a paradigm that enabled suggestion-
induced reporting bias to be assessed directly and indepen-
dently of experiential changes during hypnotic deafness
(Spanos, Burgess, & Perlini, in press) and hypnotic analgesia
(Spanos, Perlini, Patrick, Bell & Gwynn, 1990). For instance,
with respect to hypnotic deafness, the paradigm involved ad-
ministering an easily audible tone on three successive trials. A
10-s waiting period followed termination of the tone on each
trial, and after the waiting period subjects rated the loudness of
the preceding tone. The first trial was a baseline, and the sec-
ond was preceded by a hypnotic suggestion for deafness. After
the second trial, the hypnotic suggestion was canceled and sub-
jects were administered the third tone. After termination of
Tone 3, but before subjects made their loudness ratings, differ-
ent procedures were followed for experimental and control sub-
jects. Control subjects simply waited 10 s and then rated the
loudness of Tone 3, as they did on previous trials. In contrast,
during the waiting period between the termination of the Tone
3 and the loudness rating, experimental subjects were informed
that they had probably slipped into hypnosis and heard the last
tone less loudly than they heard the baseline tone. This instruc-
tion was designed to produce reduction in the rated loudness of
Tone 3 independent of subjects' actual perceptual experience of
Tone 3.
 HYPNOSIS, COMPLIANCE AND HALLUCINATION
It is important to keep in mind that up to the termination of
Tone 3, control subjects and experimental subjects were admin-
istered identical procedures and, therefore, presumably experi-
enced equivalent levels of loudness during presentation of Tone
3. Consequently, any reduction in the rated loudness of this tone
by experimental subjects relative to controls must reflect a re-
porting bias rather than a difference in perceptual experience.
Control subjects tested in this paradigm reported no significant
differences in the loudness of Tones 1 and 3. Therefore, for
experimental subjects, reduction in Tone 3 loudness ratings rela-
tive to Tone 1 loudness ratings served as an index of the degree
to which the demand instruction led subjects to bias their Tone
3 loudness reports.
To investigate hypnotic analgesia, we (Spanos, Perlini, et al.,
1990) replaced the tone with a pain stimulus and replaced the
suggestion for deafness with a suggestion for pain reduction.
Thus the two studies (Spanos et al., in press; Spanos et al.,
1990) in which we have employed this paradigm have yielded
the following findings. Subjects administered the demand in-
struction exhibited significant levels of reporting bias relative to
controls. In fact, the degree of Trial 3 reporting bias was usually
about half as large as the ratings of deafness and analgesia given
after the hypnotic suggestion on Trial 2. It is important to note
that the degree of Trial 3 reporting bias correlated strongly with
Trial 2 ratings of deafness and analgesia. In other words, people
who reported high levels of hypnotic deafness or analgesia on
Trial 2 tended to be the same people who exhibited large re-
porting biases on Trial 3.
In our paradigm, response to the Trial 3 demand instruction
correlated with hypnotizability to the same extent that hypnoti-
zability correlated with Trial 2 ratings of deafness and analge-
sia. Furthermore, when level of Trial 3 reporting bias was statis-
tically controlled, the correlations between hypnotizability and
deafness scores and hypnotizability and analgesia scores were
much reduced and sometimes no longer statistically signifi-
cant. In short, these findings suggest that demand-induced re-
porting bias plays an integral role in hypnotic responding and
that much of the reporting change that follows hypnotic sugges-
tions appears to be explicable in terms of reporting bias rather
than in terms of actual changes in subjective experience.
The present study included two experiments aimed at ex-
tending the findings thus far obtained with this paradigm. Ex-
periment 1 was concerned with both the internal validity of the
paradigm and the influence of reporting bias on open-ended
subjective reports as well as on perceptual ratings. In Experi-
ment 2 we assessed response to suggestions for negative visual
hallucination as well as for deafness, and examined the role of
strategy use and reporting bias at influencing reports of nega-
tive visual hallucination.
Experiment 1
In our earlier study on hypnotic deafness and reporting bias
(Spanos et al., in press), both experimental and control subjects
were administered a hypnotic deafness suggestion before Tone
2, but received no instructions before Tone 3. As already de-
scribed, controls returned to baseline levels of reported loud-
ness on Tone 3, whereas those administered the demand in-
struction reported less loudness than they had on baseline, but
193
more loudness than they had on the hypnotic deafness trial
(Tone 2). The increase in loudness reported by these subjects
from Trial 2 to Trial 3 is open to several interpretations. One
possibility is that subjects would have reported an increase in
loudness across these trials even if they had been administered
a hypnotic deafness suggestion before each trial. Alternatively,
the higher loudness reported after the demand instruction
(Tone 3) than after the suggestion (Tone 2) may indicate that
the demand manipulation was less potent than hypnotic sug-
gestion at lowering loudness ratings.
One purpose of the present study was to assess these alterna-
tive hypotheses by testing three groups of highly hypnotizable
subjects on three tone trials. Subjects in Groups 1 and 2 were
administered, respectively, the control sequence and the de-
mand instruction sequence described earlier. Those in Group 3
were also administered a Trial 1 baseline tone and a hypnotic
deafness suggestion before Tone 2. However, instead of cance-
ling the hypnosis and suggestion after Trial 2, we gave these
subjects another deafness suggestion before Trial 3. This design
enabled us to determine whether the increase in rated loudness
that occurs from Trial 2 (deafness suggestion) to Trial 3 (de-
mand instruction) reflects differences in the potency of the
suggestion and instruction manipulations or is a result of re-
peated exposure to the tone after either suggestion or demand
instruction.
Hypnotic suggestions for perceptual change often explicitly
instruct subjects to use cognitive strategies to bring about the
requisite experiences. Furthermore, subjects who report the per-
ceptual experiences called for often report using the strategies
contained in the suggestion or other strategies of their own
making (e.g., Spanos, Radtke-Bodorik, Ferguson, & Jones,
1979).
After Trial 3 all subjects in the present experiment completed
four increasingly explicit questionnaires that asked them to de-
scribe their experiences on Trial 3. This procedure allowed us
to determine whether subjects given the demand instruction
would bias their postexperimental reports by reporting the use
of cognitive strategies and whether any such biasing effects were
a function of the amount of information supplied to subjects by
the questionnaires that purported to assess their experience.
Method
Subjects. Forty-five Carleton University undergraduates volun-
teered to participate in a one-session study on suggestion and auditory
perception. These subjects had previously been scored as highly hyp-
notizable (scores of 5-7) on the objective dimension of the Carleton
University Responsiveness to Suggestion Scale (CURSSrO; Spanos,
Radtke, Hodgins, Stam, & Bertrand, 1983). All subjects received
course credit for their participation.
Apparatus and materials. Three identical repetitions of a 30-s, 60-
dB, 1000-Hz pure tone were prerecorded on a BASF magnetic tape and
presented to subjects over Sony DR-27 headphones from a Philips
D8270 tape recorder. Half the subjects received the tone in the left ear,
and half received it in the right ear. On each trial, 10 s after termination
of the tone, subjects verbally rated its loudness using a 21-point cate-
gory rating scale. This scale contained alternatives ranging from no
sound (Q) to intensely loud (20).
Procedure. All subjects were individually tested by the same female
experimenter. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three condi-
194 SPANOS, BURGESS, CROSS, AND MACLEOD
tions, with the restriction that there be an equal number of subjects (n =
15) in each condition. Before their baseline trial, subjects were in-
structed to give their loudness ratings after the termination of the tone,
when the experimenter tapped the back of their hands (10s after stimu-
lus termination). Subjects were requested to close their eyes and were
presented with the baseline auditory test trial.
After the baseline loudness reports, a 10-min hypnotic induction
procedure (adapted from Barber, 1969) was administered to all 45 sub-
jects. This was followed by a suggestion for deafness that informed
subjects that hypnosis would enable them to use their imaginal and
attentional processes to control sensory input and that on the next trial
they were to use these abilities to reduce the loudness of the tone. After
providing their Trial 2 loudness ratings, subjects were administered
their respective treatments.
Fifteen subjects (the hypnosis group) were given a reinforced hyp-
notic deafness suggestion that informed them that they were to con-
tinue to relax and drift deeper into hypnosis. This was followed by the
same deafness suggestion administered on Trial 2. After their Trial 3
loudness reports, these subjects were awakened and the deafness sug-
gestion was canceled.
After making their Trial 2 ratings, the remaining subjects (n = 30)
were administered a wake-up procedure and cancellation of the deaf-
ness suggestion. For these subjects, Trial 3 was preceded with the in-
struction that this last trial would be "just like Trial 1." In the 10 s after
termination of the Trial 3 tone, but before making their loudness rat-
ings, half of these subjects (n = 15) received the following demand
instruction:
People who are exposed to the tone more than once tend to drift
back into hypnosis, and this greatly reduces the intensity of the
sound that they hear. You probably drifted into hypnosis on this
last trial, and for this reason, heard very little of the tone.
The other half (the control group) were not given any instruction before
making their final loudness ratings.
At the end of the third trial (after their loudness ratings), subjects in
all conditions were given three open-ended questionnaires designed to
assess their reported subjective experience of the Trial 3 tone. On the
first questionnaire subjects described everything they had experi-
enced on the last trial (Trial 3). On the second questionnaire subjects
provided more details about what they had experienced on the last
trial. On the third they reported what, if anything, they had done on
the last trial in order to hear the tone less loudly. Subjects who reported
using a strategy on the first questionnaire received a score of 3, those
who first reported strategy use on the second questionnaire were
scored 2, and those who first reported strategy use on the third ques-
tionnaire were scored 1. Subjects who failed to report strategy use on
any of the questionnaires were scored 0. Two independent judges who
were unaware of subjects' treatment assignment agreed on their strat-
egy score 89% of the time.
After completing these open-ended questionnaires, subjects were
administered a 9-point Likert-type scale on which they rated the extent
to which they had used imaginal or distraction techniques in order to
reduce the loudness of the Trial 3 tone. The scale alternatives ranged
from not at all (1) to all the time (9).
Results
Reductions in reported loudness. A 3 X 3 (Group [hypnosis,
demand, or control] X Trial [1,2, or 3]) mixed analysis of vari-
ance (ANOYA) performed on the loudness ratings yielded a
significant Group X Trial interaction, F(4,84) = 15.84, p < .001.
This interaction was analyzed further in terms of simple main
effects, and the relevant means are shown in Table 1. The simple
main effects for group at Trials 1 and 2 failed to approach signif-
icance. In other words, subjects in the three groups reported
equivalent levels of loudness on both the baseline trial and
Trial 2.
Within-group simple effects analyses revealed that subjects
given the reinforced hypnotic deafness suggestion, F(2, 84) =
33.58, p < .001, subjects given the demand instruction, F(2,
84) = 35.64, p < .001, and the control subjects, F(2,84) = 35.53,
p < .001, reported significant changes in the loudness of the
tone across the three trials. Post hoc comparisons indicated
that subjects given the reinforced hypnotic deafness suggestion
reported the tone as significantly less loud on Trials 2 and 3
than on the baseline trial. The latter two means failed to differ
significantly. Subjects administered the demand instruction
also reported significantly lower loudness on Trial 2 (suggested
deafness) and on Trial 3 (demand instruction) than on the base-
line trial. However, the Trial 3 loudness ratings of these subjects
were slightly but significantly higher than their Trial 2 loudness
ratings. For the control subjects, Trial 2 loudness reports were
substantially lower than those of either the baseline trial or
Trial 3. Furthermore, the Trial 3 ratings of these subjects did
not differ significantly from their baseline ratings.
In summary, all subjects reported equivalent and substantial
hearing loss in response to the deafness suggestion on Trial 2.
However, subjects in the three conditions exhibited different
patterns of response from Trial 2 to Trial 3. Subjects who re-
ceived hypnotic deafness suggestions on both Trials 2 and 3
reported equivalent hearing loss on these two trials. Subjects
given the demand instruction also reported significant Trial 3
loudness reduction, but to a less degree than that exhibited on
Trial 2. In contrast, Trial 3 loudness reports for the control
subjects did not differ from their baseline trial reports.
Reported deafness and cognitive strategies. A one-way AN-
OVA performed on the cognitive strategy scores obtained from
the open-ended questionnaires was significant, F(2,42) = 5.22,
p < .01. Subjects who received the reinforced hypnotic deafness
suggestion on Trial 3 attained significantly higher cognitive
strategy scores (M = 2.20, SD = .94) than did subjects given the
demand instruction (M = 1.47, SD = 1.06) and the control sub-
jects (M = 1.00, SD = 1.07). Those in the latter two groups did
not differ significantly in cognitive strategy scores.
A one-way ANOVA performed on subjects' scale ratings of
strategy use was significant, F(2, 42) = 6.84, p < .01. Post hoc
comparisons revealed that both the reinforced hypnosis sub-
jects (M = 6.53, SD =1.51) and the demand instruction subjects
(M = 6.60, SD = 1.24) rated themselves as using cognitive strate-
gies to a greater extent than did the control subjects (M = 4.60,
SD = 2.16). The strategy use ratings of demand instruction
Table 1
Mean Loudness Ratings by Group
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial3
Group M SD M SD M SD
Hypnosis 14.27 3.49 10.40 4.66 9.27 5.02
Demand Instruction 13.47 4.02 8.07 2.71 10.87 4.57
10.80 3.99 15.87 3.78
Control 14.93 3.13
 HYPNOSIS, COMPLIANCE AND HALLUCINATION
subjects failed to differ significantly from the ratings of subjects
in the hypnosis condition.
Discussion
Our findings replicate those of earlier studies (Spanos et al,
in press; Spanos et al., 1990) and provide strong support for the
hypothesis that reports of suggestion-induced perceptual alter-
ation proffered by highly hypnotizable hypnotic subjects re-
flect, to a substantial degree, reporting biases rather than ac-
tual changes in perceptual processing. In addition, the present
findings indicate that the increase in loudness reported from
Trial 2 (hypnotic deafness) to Trial 3 (demand instruction) by
subjects given the demand manipulation cannot be explained
in terms of repeated exposure to the tone. Subjects who were
given the hypnotic suggestion before Trial 2 and again before
Trial 3 continued to report the same low levels of loudness on
both trials. These findings indicate that hypnotic suggestions
were slightly but significantly more potent at inducing reports
of deafness than was the demand instruction employed in this
research. These findings might mean that Trial 2 loudness re-
duction scores reflect a small perceptual alteration component
that was added to a reporting bias component. Alternatively,
these findings might simply mean that hypnotic suggestions
contained stronger demands to bias perceptual reports than
did our demand instruction. Regardless of which hypothesis
eventually proves true, the present findings clearly support
Wagstaff's (1981,1986) contention that suggestion-induced re-
porting bias is a central component in hypnotic responding.
Subjects given the deafness suggestion before Trial 3 re-
ported more use of cognitive strategies in their open-ended re-
ports than did either control subjects or subjects given the de-
mand instruction. As already mentioned, only subjects given
the Trial 3 suggestion maintained equivalent levels of reported
loudness reduction across Trials 2 and 3. One interpretation of
these findings is that strategy use led to the greater-than-de-
mand loudness reductions in subjects given the Trial 3 sugges-
tion. On the other hand, these findings could indicate that
subjects who received the Trial 3 suggestion were particularly
likely to indicate strategy use because only these subjects had
been given a suggestion that explicitly instructed them to use
strategies on Trial 3. The open-ended questionnaires, by them-
selves, contained few cues that strategy reporting was required.
Consequently, most subjects given the demand instruction may
have been unaware that such reporting was called for. However,
when these subjects were given the final Likert-type scale that
explicitly asked them to rate the extent of their strategy use,
their ratings on this dimension were as high as those of the
subjects given the Trial 3 deafness suggestion. In other words,
subjects were quite willing to bias their reports of strategy use as
well as their loudness reports. However, such biasing was un-
likely to occur in the demand instruction condition until these
subjects were provided (via an explicit questionnaire) with the
requisite information about the responses called for. Such infor-
mation was provided by the suggestion for those subjects who
received a suggestion before Trial 3. Consequently, for subjects
in this condition, open-ended reports of strategy use and the
relationship between such reports and reported loudness re-
ductions remain ambiguous. It would be of interest in a future
195
study to administer deafness suggestions that did not provide
cognitive strategies. If subjects who received these suggestions
continued to report greater strategy use on open-ended ques-
tionnaires and greater loudness reductions on Trial 3 than sub-
jects given a demand instruction, support would be provided
for the hypothesis that strategy use produces effects on percep-
tual reports above and beyond the effects of reporting bias.
Experiment 2
Negative visual hallucinations are suggestion-induced re-
ports of an inability to see a target stimulus. Negative visual
hallucination suggestions are among the most difficult items
on standardized hypnotizability scales (Hilgard, 1965) and are
usually "passed" by only highly hypnotizable subjects. Al-
though relatively little empirical work has focused on negative
visual hallucinations, some evidence indicates that reporting
bias may play a prominent role in this phenomenon.
Spanos, Flynn, and Gabora (1989) gave highly hypnotizable
subjects the suggestion that, on opening their eyes, they would
see only a blank piece of paper. In fact, the number 8 was dis-
played prominently on the paper. Subjects who reported seeing
nothing on the paper were interviewed by a second experi-
menter, who implied to them that seeing nothing was the re-
sponse typically given only by fakers, whereas seeing a figure
that gradually faded over 1 min was typical of truly hypnotized
people. Subjects were then given the opportunity to draw what
they had seen on the paper at successive points after they had
opened their eyes. Under these circumstances, 14 out of 15 sub-
jects who had initially insisted that they saw nothing on the
paper now drew a number 8 as the figure seen when they first
opened their eyes. In other words, when demands to report
having "seen nothing" were lifted, almost all of these highly
hypnotizable subjects acknowledged through their drawings
that they had seen the target figure they had earlier denied
seeing.
These findings do not mean that subjects in the Spanos et al.
(1989) experiment failed to experience any perceptual distor-
tion after the suggestion. By employing simple ocular strategies
such as unfocusing the eyes, or averting gaze from the target
stimulus, subjects can easily produce blurring and other distor-
tions of visual perception. Subjects in the Spanos et al. experi-
ment and in other experiments on negative hallucination may
well have employed such strategies to induce perceptual distor-
tions. Nevertheless, Spanos et al.'s findings suggest that, regard-
less of any such distortions in perception, subjects clearly exag-
gerated their experiences in line with suggested demands by
stating that they could see nothing on the paper.
Although hypnotic subjects are exposed to explicit demands
to gear their reports in line with the requests of suggestions,
they are also exposed to implicit demands to report honestly
and accurately about their experiences (deGroot & Gwynn,
1989; Spanos, 1986). Furthermore, hypnotic subjects are likely
to differ substantially in the extent to which they are sensitive to
norms for honest reporting. Consequently, such subjects are
likely to exaggerate and distort their experiences to different
degrees in response to experimental demands.
Although the Spanos et al. (1989) study indicated that nega-
tive hallucinators exaggerate their experiences in terms of sug-
196 SPANOS, BURGESS, CROSS, AND MACLEOD
gested demands, it provided no means of assessing individual
differences in the degree of such reporting bias. Moreover, nei-
ther Spanos et al. nor other researchers have assessed the cogni-
tive strategies that subjects employ in order to distort their per-
ceptual experiences and define themselves as "not seeing."
In Experiment 2, we assessed the strategies for "not seeing"
that subjects reported in response to a negative visual hallucina-
tion suggestion and examined the relationship between the use
of such strategies and the degree to which subjects reported
blindness. In addition, the role of reporting bias in negative
visual hallucination responding was assessed by testing sub-
jects in the deafness paradigm described in Experiment 1 and
examining the relationship between bias scores obtained in that
paradigm and blindness scores obtained in response to a nega-
tive visual hallucination suggestion. We anticipated that report-
ing bias in the deafness paradigm would correlate significantly
with reports of blindness after the suggestion for negative visual
hallucination.
Method
Subjects. Forty-nine Carleton University undergraduates volun-
teered to participate in a study of perception and hypnosis. These
subjects had previously tested as either medium (scores of 3 or 4) or
high (scores of 5-7) on the CURS&O (Spanos et al., 1983). All subjects
received course credit for their participation.
Procedure. All subjects were tested individually by the same male
experimenter in two sessions. In the first session subjects were asked to
close their eyes and were administered the 10-min hypnotic induction
procedure used in Experiment 1. This was followed by a suggestion for
blindness that informed subjects that they were to become actively
involved in the suggestion and were to use whatever strategies they
could to make a word disappear from a piece of paper. Subjects were
then instructed to look at an 8.5 in. X 11 in. sheet of white paper that
was held approximately 50 cm in front of their eyes. On the paper was
printed the word DINOSAUR in letters 20 mm in height. The sugges-
tion instructed subjects to notice that the word was fading more and
more, until it completely disappeared and the paper was blank. They
were then asked to describe what they saw on the paper. Following
Bryant and McConkey (1989), subjects who reported seeing all or part
of the word DINOSAUR were given a prompt that encouraged them to
try harder and to use whatever strategies they could to make the word
fade and disappear. After the prompt, these subjects were again asked
what they saw on the paper. After their verbal reports, a wake-up pro-
cedure was administered and the blindness suggestion was canceled.
Blindness scores were computed as follows. Subjects who in their ini-
tial descriptions reported seeing nothing on the paper were given a
blindness score of 2. Subjects who initially reported seeing all or part of
the word but reported complete blindness after the prompt received a
score of 1. Finally, subjects who failed to report blindness despite the
prompt received a score of 0.
Subjects were next administered a 5-point scale asking them to rate
the extent of their blindness. Scale alternatives ranged from not at all
(0) to completely (4). After completion of this hypnotic blindness self-
rating, subjects wrote responses to a one-page, open-ended question-
naire that asked them what, if anything, they had done in order to "not
see" the word. This questionnaire was scored for cognitive strategy use
by two independent judges who were unaware of subjects' experimen-
tal condition and level of hypnotizability. Judges scored each subject as
reporting strategy use (1) or not reporting strategy use (0). Judges
agreed 92% of the time, and discrepancies were resolved through dis-
cussion.
Finally, the subjects were given a list of seven possible strategies and
were asked to circle as many as they had used in their attempt to make
the word disappear. These strategies were listed as follows:
1. I unfocused my eyes.
2. I crossed my eyes.
3. I looked above, below, or away from the word, rather than
looking right at it.
4. I created a visual image to cover or block the word.
5. I tried to imagine a different word.
6. I tried to think of other things, so as not to notice the word.
7. Other (specify).
Subjects were tested in a second individual session within 2 weeks of
the first. During the second session, 34 subjects were administered the
deafness paradigm with the demand instruction after Tone 3 in the
same manner as in Experiment 1. The remaining 15 subjects were ad-
ministered the control sequence of the paradigm. After their loudness
ratings all subjects were administered two open-ended questionnaires
taken from Experiment 1 (Questionnaires 1 and 3) that assessed re-
ported strategy use during the Trial 3 tone. Subjects were scored 2 if
they reported strategy use on the first questionnaire, 1 if they reported
strategy use on the second questionnaire, and 0 if they failed to report
strategy use on either questionnaire. Two independent judges agreed
on these ratings 92% of the time.
Results
Compliance and control. A Hotelling's T2 analysis that com-
pared the scores of Session 2 experimental and control subjects
on the CURSS dimensions, open-ended blindness reports,
blindness scale self-ratings, and judges' blindness strategy use
ratings failed to approach significance. Thus subjects in the
demand instruction and control conditions were equivalent on
these measures.
Session 2 experimental effects. A 2 X 3 (Condition [demand
instruction or control] X Trial [1, 2, or 3]) mixed ANOV\ on
loudness ratings yielded a significant interaction, F(2, 94) =
3.88, p < .025, that was analyzed further in terms of simple
main effects. As shown in Table 2, the simple main effects for
condition at Trials 1 and 2 failed to approach significance, indi-
cating that subjects in the demand instruction and control con-
ditions of Session 2 reported equivalent levels of loudness on
these two trials. However, a significant simple main effect was
found for condition at Trial 3, F(l, 70) = 6.28, p < .025. Subjects
who received the demand instruction reported significantly
lower Trial 3 loudness ratings than did the nondemand (con-
trol) subjects.
Analyses within conditions revealed that significant changes
in the loudness of the tone across trials were reported by sub-
jects given the demand instruction, F(2,94) = 30.14, p< .001,
and also by subjects not given the demand instruction (con-
Table 2
Mean Loudness Ratings for Demand
Instruction and Control Subjects
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
Subjects M SD M SD M SD
11.44 3.82
Demand Instruction 13.29 3.94 9.47 3.32
Control 14.20 3.65 10.20 4.02 14.40 4.42
 HYPNOSIS, COMPLIANCE AND HALLUCINATION
trols), F(2, 94) = 20.42, p < .001. Post hoc comparisons (least
significant difference) indicated that subjects given the demand
instruction reported significant loudness reductions on Trial 2
(suggested deafness) and on Trial 3 (demand instruction). How-
ever, Trial 3 reported loudness reductions were significantly
smaller than those of Trial 2. The nondemand subjects re-
ported significantly lower loudness on Trial 2 than on Trial 1 or
3. Loudness ratings on Trials 1 and 3 failed to differ signifi-
cantly.
Reporting bias in "blind" and"not blind"subjects. Analyses of
relationships between Session 2 reporting bias and response to
the Session 1 negative visual hallucination suggestion included
only those subjects who were administered the demand in-
struction in Session 2. For each of these subjects, a Session 2
reporting bias score was obtained by subtracting their Trial 3
(demand instruction) loudness score from their Trial 1 score.
We anticipated that subjects who reported complete blind-
ness in Session 1 would report greater Session 2 reporting bias
then subjects who reported little or no blindness in Session 1.
This hypothesis was tested in an analysis that included only
those subjects who rated themselves as exhibiting complete
blindness (self-rating of 4, n = 11) or little or no blindness (self-
rating of 1 or 0,« = 9) in Session 1. As predicted, subjects who
reported complete blindness (M = 3.73, SD = 2.65) exhibited
substantially and significantly greater Session 2 reporting bias
than those who did not report blindness (M= .33, SD = 3.24),
/(18) = 2.58 p < .05.
Strategies for blindness and deafness. On the basis of their
Session 1 open-ended reports, 40 subjects (82%) were rated as
using one or more strategies in an attempt to "not see" the
target word. However, in response to the seven-item list of strat-
egies, all subjects reported using at least one strategy. The per-
centages of subjects who chose each listed strategy are given in
Table 3. Twelve subjects (24%) chose Strategy 7 on the strategy
checklist, indicating that they had used strategies other than
the available choices. Closer examination revealed that 8 of
these subjects (67%) reported ocular fixation on only a limited
aspect of the stimulus (i.e., staring fixedly at a letter or portion
of the word DINOSAUR); 2 subjects (17%) described sensations
experienced during the suggestion, such as a blurriness of vi-
sion, rather than reporting a specific strategy; 1 subject reiter-
ated that he had visualized a piece of white paper covering the
Table 3
Number and Percentage of Subjects
Who Reported Using Each Strategy
No. of
Strategy subjects %
1. I unfocused my eyes. 33 67
2. I crossed my eyes. 7 14
3. I looked above, below, or away from the word,
rather than looking right at it. 29 59
4. I created a visual image to cover or block the
word. 13 27
5. I tried to imagine a different word. 4 8
6. I tried to think of other things, so as not to
notice the word. 6 12
7. Other (specify). 12 24
197
word (Strategy 4); and the remaining subject simply reported "I
blanked my mind."
A t test comparing Session 2 demand instruction and control
subjects on auditory strategy scores obtained from the open-
ended questionnaires failed to approach significance. As in Ex-
periment 1, subjects who received the demand instruction (M=
.74, SD = .57) reported no greater use of cognitive strategies to
reduce the loudness of the Trial 3 tone than did control subjects
Correlations. Table 4 shows the correlations among the de-
pendent variables assessed in Sessions 1 and 2 for subjects given
the demand instruction in Session 2. Difference scores were
used to compute Session 2 deafness scores (baseline-Trial 2)
and reporting bias scores (baseline-Trial 3).
In Session 2, the correlation between Trial 2 deafness scores
and Trial 3 reporting bias scores was substantial and indicated
that to a large extent subjects who reported high levels of hyp-
notic deafness were the same persons who, on the next trial,
biased their reports in terms of experimental demands. Interest-
ingly, the extent to which subjects biased their reports on Trial 3
also correlated significantly with the extent to which they re-
ported use of cognitive strategies on that trial. In other words,
subjects who biased their reports of hearing reduction to a rela-
tively large degree also tended to be attuned enough to experi-
mental demands to generate reports of strategy use on the basis
of the minimal cues provided by the open-ended question-
naires.
In Session 1, the correlation between open-ended reports of
blindness and self-ratings of blindness was very high and sup-
ports the notion that these two indexes assessed the same re-
sponse dimension. Neither of these Session 1 blindness indexes
correlated significantly with the extent of strategy use reported
by subjects in response to the negative visual hallucination sug-
gestion. On the other hand, both Session 1 blindness indexes
correlated significantly with Session 2 deafness ratings and re-
porting bias scores. More important, the partial correlations
between deafness ratings and open-ended reports of blindness,
r(31) = .03, and between deafness ratings and self-ratings of
blindness, r(31) = .22, were not significant when the effects of
reporting bias scores were statistically controlled. Reporting
bias scores, like blindness scores, did not correlate significantly
with the extent of subjects' strategy use in response to the Ses-
sion 1 suggestion. Taken together, these findings indicate that
reporting bias influenced response to suggestions for negative
visual hallucination as well as response to deafness suggestions.
Moreover, the correlation between reports of suggested blind-
ness and deafness was mediated by subjects' tendency to bias
their perceptual reports in terms of suggested demands.
General Discussion
The findings of Experiment 2 concerning suggested deafness
replicate those of Experiment 1 as well as those of Spanos et al.
(in press) and indicate that demand-induced reporting bias
plays an important role in the phenomenon of hypnotic deaf-
ness. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 further indicate that
compliance pressures lead subjects to bias their reports of audi-
tory strategy use as well as their reports of reduced hearing.
When assessment procedures explicitly implied that the report-
198 SPANOS, BURGESS, CROSS, AND MACLEOD
Table 4
Correlations Among Session 1 and Session 2 Dependent Variables in Experiment 2
Variable 1
1. Suggested deafness .79**
2. Reporting bias
3. Deafness strategies
4. Judges' blindness ratings
5. Self-ratings of blindness
6. Blindness strategies
*p<.05. **p<.01.
ing of strategy use was appropriate and provided a simple rating
scale for expressing such reports, subjects exposed to a demand
inducement but no deafness suggestion reported as much strat-
egy use as subjects given hypnotic suggestions that explicitly
requested strategy use. When open-ended questionnaires pro-
vided few cues concerning the reporting of strategies, subjects
exposed to the demand instruction rarely reported strategy use.
Nevertheless, subjects who did report strategy use under these
low-cue conditions tended to be those who were most willing to
bias their perceptual reports. Thus subjects who were willing to
bias their perceptual reports were also willing to bias their re-
ports of strategy use. Moreover, those who exhibited the largest
biases in perceptual reporting also appeared to be particularly
sensitive to relatively subtle social cues (i.e., the wording of
open-ended questions) from which they derived and used infor-
mation to better shape their self-presentations as responsive
hypnotic subjects.
Of course, it is possible to argue that subjects reported their
experience of hypnotic deafness accurately on Trial 2 and only
biased their responses when given the demand instruction after
Trial 3. If this were the case, however, there would be no reason
to expect a correlation between Trial 2 deafness reports and
Trial 3 bias scores. The fact that this correlation was both signifi-
cant and substantial suggests that Trial 2 hypnotic deafness
scores reflect, to a large extent, reporting bias rather than per-
ceptual change.
The findings of Experiment 2 indicate that the tendency of
subjects to bias their reports in a hypnotic deafness situation
reflects a general tendency to bias reports across hypnotic test
situations. The negative visual hallucination suggestion en-
couraged subjects to become actively involved in distorting
their perceptions, and subjects' strategy reports indicated that
all or almost all of them employed strategies (usually oculomo-
tor strategies) to create such distortions. Nevertheless, such
strategy use was unrelated to the degree of blindness that sub-
jects reported. In contrast, the extent to which subjects biased
their ratings in the deafness paradigm did correlate signifi-
cantly with blindness scores. This pattern of findings suggests
that subjects used oculomotor and other strategies in an at-
tempt to induce perceptual distortion in response to the nega-
tive hallucination suggestion. Although strategy usage may
well have produced some degree of perceptual alteration, such
usage was unrelated to subjects' reports of blindness. Instead,
the extent to which subjects defined whatever perceptual alter-
ations they experienced as "blindness" was a function of their
.39* .31* .42** .04
.35* .37* .38* .02
.03 .03 .11
.82** .04
.04
self-presentation concerns and their resultant motivations to
bias their perceptual reports in terms of situational demands.
Although suggested deafness scores in Session 2 correlated
significantly with suggested blindness scores in Session 1, these
correlations dropped to nonsignificance when the effects of
reporting bias were statistically controlled. These findings indi-
cate that the relationship between suggested blindness and sug-
gested deafness in the present experiments was not mediated
by some general ability on the part of highly hypnotizable sub-
jects to alter their perceptual experiences in line with sugges-
tions. Instead, the common feature tying together responses in
these two situations was the tendency of subjects to bias their
perceptual reports in terms of contextual demands.
A number of investigators (Bryant & McConkey, 1989; Za-
mansky, 1989) have contended that suggestion-induced reports
of blindness and deafness proffered by hypnotic subjects can be
treated as accurate descriptions of private experience and have
developed theories of negative hallucination based on the valid-
ity of such reports. The results of the present experiments, along
with those of earlier studies (Spanos et al, 1989; Spanos et al.,
1990; Spanos, 1991), call these contentions into serious ques-
tion. Instead, our findings suggest that reports of hypnotic
blindness and deafness should be treated skeptically unless cor-
roborated with objective indexes. In relation to this, theories of
negative hallucination that are based on the veridicality of such
reports are likely to be premature. On the other hand, our re-
sults strongly support Wagstaff 's (1981) contention that compli-
ant responding plays a central role in hypnotic responding.
Although most investigators are rarely explicit when dealing
with the issue, they appear to reject the hypothesis that much
hypnotic behavior reflects reporting bias. Nevertheless, this re-
jection has not been based on convincing data or theory con-
cerning the limitations of this hypothesis. In fact, with few ex-
ceptions (Orne, 1959; Sarbin & Coe, 1979; Wagstaff, 1981,1986)
investigators have failed to spell out the implications of biased
responding for their theories of hypnosis. The present findings
suggest that reporting bias deserves more serious consideration
than it has heretofore received in theoretical formulations of
hypnotic responding.
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Received December 6,1990
Revision received May 14,1991
Accepted May 18,1991 •