New Research Involving Hypnosis Shows That Thoughts Can Impact Tactile Perception
A recent study conducted by researchers at Ruhr University Bochum has shown that our mental processes can influence and alter tactile perception– an issue that the scientific community has been divided on.
This finding came after each participant was put under professional hypnosis, and the scientists discovered that if we genuinely believe that our index finger is five times larger than it truly is, then tactility– or our sense of touch– will improve.
Interestingly, the opposite was found to be true as well. When the participants received a hypnotic suggestion that their index finger was actually five times smaller than it really was, their sense of touch also decreased.
The participant pool included 24 individuals. And prior to undergoing hypnosis, the researchers used the two-point discrimination method to measure each participant’s tactile perception.
The method involved lying the index finger on a device that caused two needles to repeatedly touch the finger. This contact was painless but still perceivable.
“If the needles are far enough apart, we can easily distinguish two points of contact. But if the needles are very close together, we only feel the touch in one place,” explained Hubert Dinse, one of the study’s authors.
So, even though two needles are presented, the sensation can change from feeling two needles to only one when a certain distance between the needles is reached.
And the team wanted to determine whether or not it was possible to alter this “sensation threshold” by signaling a verbally-articulated thought in an individual.
The researchers ultimately selected two different thought cues. The first was, “Imagine your index finger is five times smaller.” The second was, “Imagine your index finger is five times bigger.” Then, to activate these statements, hypnotic suggestion was used.
Martin Villadsen – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
A professional hypnotist induced each participant into a controlled state of hypnosis. And during this time, each individual was asked to accept the first belief– that their index finger was five times smaller– for a series of experiments. Afterward, the participants were then asked to accept the second belief– that their index finger was five times bigger.
The four experiments were meant to determine sensation threshold in a variety of contexts: in everyday consciousness, under hypnosis without hypnotic suggestion, and under hypnosis with the suggestions of either a smaller or bigger index finger.
“Discrimination thresholds did not differ when measured during normal consciousness and hypnosis without suggestion. This supports our preliminary assumption that hypnosis alone doesn’t lead to changes,” concluded Martin Tegenthoff, one of the study’s authors.
“However, if the beliefs are induced as suggestions under hypnosis, we observe a systematic change in the tactile discrimination threshold.”
In other words, when a participant imagined that the size of their index finger was five times larger, their discrimination threshold improved– meaning the participant was able to feel two needles despite the smaller distance between them.
Then, when a participant imagined that their index finger was five times smaller, it was found that their discrimination threshold worsened. These findings were also supported by brain activity recordings, including sensory evoked potentials and spontaneous EEG. So, the results of this study indicate that beliefs can change perception.
This idea that perceptual processes can be impacted by semantic content alone– also known as “the question of cognitive penetrability of perception– has divided the scientific community.
“Our study provides another building block supporting the idea that such top-down influences of beliefs on perception do indeed exist. The beliefs we hold do indeed change how we experience the world,” said Dinse.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Scientific Reports, visit the link here.
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