Post-hypnotic amnesia: seeing is not remembering

Prior to the administration of the reversibility cue to cancel a suggestion for post-hypnotic amnesia, subjects were exposed to a videotape playback of the events of the hypnotic session in the presence of an independent experimenter. The specific application of this method (the Experiential Analysis Technique) was designed to maximally cue subjects to recall and report on amnesic events. Performance of highly susceptible subjects who viewed the videotape indicated that amnesic subjects commented on fewer items, stopped the videotape less, and verbalized less than did non-amnesic subjects. The cued recall of the amnesic group was also often item-specific rather than general, and allowed one to distinguish between the impact of behavioural and experiential events. For some subjects, amnesia clearly could not be completely broken by the presentation of maximal cueing.