Effects of hypnosis and perceptual deprivation on vigilance in a simulated radar target-detection task

Detection efficiency of humans deteriorates rapidly in a variety of monotonous monitoring tasks. The experiment was performed to determine whether or not superior vigilance performance could be obtained through hypnosis in the context of perceptual deprivation. Subjects, forty U.S. Navy personnel, were divided into four groups. Subjects worked on a simulated radar target-detection task before and after one of four treatments. Those given post-hypnotic suggestions for increased alertness made significantly fewer errors in target detection while those exposed to suggestions for decreased performance or perceptual deprivation only showed significant increases in errors. Controls showed no significant changes in errors. Change scores were significantly related to Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale hypnotizability scores for subjects in the hypnosis-augment performance group but not for other groups.