Post-hypnotic Suggestions of Safety and Neuronal Signals of Reward Sensitivity

We tested 24 highly suggestible participants in two experimental conditions in an EEG study. In the beginning of the experiment, all participants were hypnotized and suggested to feel safe. The feeling of safety was associated with a post-hypnotic trigger that elicits the feeling of safety afterwards. After the termination of the hypnotic state, participants completed two experimental conditions in balanced order. In the safety condition, participants used the post-hypnotic trigger of safety and played a risk game where they could win monetary rewards. In the control condition, participants used a control trigger and played the same risk game. In a follow-up survey, we asked participants if the post-hypnotic trigger of safety still worked.

EEG data were recorded with Brain Vision Recorder and analyzed with Matlab and EEGlab. All data were analyzed with R.

The results are published here:

Boehmer, J., & Schmidt, B. (2022). Safety on demand: Post-hypnotic suggestions of safety reduce neural signals of reward sensitivity with long-term beneficial effects. Psychophysiology https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14015