U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Investigative Use of Hypnosis - A Word of Caution

NCJ Number
86722
Journal
Internation Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis Volume: 29 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1981) Pages: 401-412
Author(s)
M Zelig; W B Beidleman
Date Published
1981
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The purpose of the present experiment was to determine the efficacy of hypnosis for enhancing the recall of Ss exposed to a stress provoking motion picture.
Abstract
This stimulus, which vividly displayed several workshop accidents, was selected to provide an analog to witnessing an actual crime. After viewing the film, Ss were questioned in either hypnosis or in a waking state and responded to a questionnaire which contained leading and nonleading questions. Dependent measures included the number correct, number of errors, and the average confidence rating given to their responses. Analyses of these data revealed that waking Ss were significantly more accurate on leading questions. No significant differences were observed when Ss' responses to nonleading questions were examined. Post hoc correlational analyses across both hypnotic and waking conditions revealed that hypnotic susceptibility and confidence ratings were positively correlated while susceptibility and the number of correct responses were not significantly correlated. These findings are compared with previous research and the resulting implications for hypnotically conducted interrogations are discussed. (Author abstract)

Downloads

No download available

Availability