Hypnosis Dissociates Early Error Detection from Later Error Evaluation: Evidence from Error-Related Brain Potentials

Hypnosis provides a valuable experimental model for investigating how performance-monitoring signals are transformed into conscious awareness and behavioural control. Errors committed during cognitive tasks elicit two well-established event-related potential (ERP) components: the error-related negativity (Ne /ERN), associated with early error detection, and the error positivity (Pe), associated with later evaluative and awareness-related processing. Previous research suggested that hypnosis reduces the Pe while preserving the Ne in highly hypnotizable individuals, although this finding has awaited replication. In the present study, highly and low hypnotizable participants, classified using the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, performed a Stroop-type conflict task under hypnotic and waking conditions while electroencephalographic activity was recorded. Highly hypnotizable participants exhibited a significant reduction in Pe amplitude during hypnosis together with evidence of enhanced Ne activity, whereas no comparable effects were observed among low hypnotizable participants. Response times were also slower during hypnosis in highly hypnotizable individuals. These findings indicate that hypnosis selectively alters later stages of performance monitoring while preserving, and potentially enhancing, earlier error-detection processes. Contemporary predictive-processing accounts suggest that performance-related prediction errors remain intact during hypnosis but exert reduced influence on higher-order evaluative systems because their salience or precision weighting is diminished. Hypnosis may therefore provide a useful model for investigating how neural signals related to performance discrepancies become incorporated into conscious awareness, self-monitoring, and cognitive control.