Experiment · 2000
Hypnotic visual illusion alters color processing in the brain
Listen instead of reading · 35 minDirty Mind: Dirty Talk Hypnosis – Find Your Own WordsNo script, no borrowed lines: a trance that lets your own words out – in a lower, slower voice. Kosslyn, S. M., Thompson, W. L., Costantini-Ferrando, M. F., Alpert, N. M., & Spiegel, D. · American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(8), 1279–1284
Main finding
Activity in brain regions involved in colour processing followed what participants were told to see, not only what was on the screen. The suggestion changed perception-related brain activity, not just what people said they saw.
What was done
Highly hypnotizable volunteers looked at colourful and grey patterns in a PET scanner. Under hypnosis they were asked to see colour in the grey pattern and to drain the colour from the colourful one.
What the study does not show
A small group of highly hypnotizable people. It shows that suggestion can shift perceptual processing; it does not tell us how common this is.
Cite as
Kosslyn, S. M., Thompson, W. L., Costantini-Ferrando, M. F., Alpert, N. M., & Spiegel, D. (2000). Hypnotic visual illusion alters color processing in the brain. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(8), 1279–1284. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.157.8.1279
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