Citation

We investigated whether hypnotizability, dissociation, and belief in psi are related to performance in a precognition task that measures whether later practice enhances previous memory recall. Participants low (n = 19) and high (n = 19, 7 also high in dissociation) in hypnotizability completed the task and a measure of belief in psi, with the experimenters masked as to participants’ level of hypnotizability and dissociation. A general precognition effect was not replicated and there was no overall effect for hypnotizability, but high hypnotizables who were low in dissociation differed significantly from dissociative high hypnotizables and from low hypnotizables, and scored below chance. Belief in psi was related to dissociation and history of trauma, and trauma and working memory were negatively correlated. With respect to features of the experiment itself, we were contacted after we had run about one third of the participants by the developer of the program, who asked us to use a modified version. We did not change our protocol, but decided to analyze the data in segments before and after we were asked to use a different program. Although not significant, the first third of the data was clearly in the direction of psihitting whereas later segments were in the opposite direction. A regression analysis controlling for groups showed a significant decline effect. Our results support the value of using selected groups and suggest that dissociation may mediate the effects of hypnotizability in psi performance.