Critical comments on Hibler's presentation of his work on negative after-images of hypnotically induced hallucinated colors.

Abstract

Hibler (see XIV: 4903) failed to confirm the finding of Erickson and Erickson (see XII: 5274), who in 1938 reported that under hypnosis subjects naive in regard to color phenomena hallucinate appropriate negative afterimages. He suggested that these hypnotic hallucinations are probably basically verbal rather than sensory or cerebral. The present paper contains Mrs. Erickson's criticisms of Hibler's negative findings, chief of which is his use of an inadequate technique, requiring less than 15 to 30 minutes for the induction. She also points out that Hibler's subjects were sophisticated in regard to the nature of afterimages, although 1 of the 4 subjects expected positive afterimages under conditions in which negative afterimages are to be expected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)