Browsing by Subject "hypnoosi"

Hypnosis has a colorful history and different beliefs are still very much alive. Hypnosis can be broadly defined as top-down regulation where suggestions can influence on individual’s cognitive functions. Effects can be seen in ideomotor, -sensory and cognitive functions as well as ideomotor challenges. How hypnosis produces these effects can be considered through two theoretical frameworks. The altered state theory of hypnosis states that hypnosis produces a special state of consciousness that is optimal for automatic influences of the suggestions. Sociocognitive theories emphasize that changes produced by hypnosis are due to mental imagination and situational factors. By combining these integrative model aims to create an interaction network that brings together social, cognitive and neural factors. In highly hypnotizable individuals changes in perceptual experience can be created without induction of hypnosis. The primary role of suggestions has arisen from experiments of Stroop effect and production of visual hallucinations. Pure hypnosis without suggestions does not seem to influence on different cognitive functions. The role of suggestions is complicated by results where hypnosis has been necessary for the effects of the suggestions to arise. The neural bases of the hypnotic suggestions seem to be the changes in activation on those brain areas and connections that are involved in executing cognitive functions in everyday situations. In systematic analysis only activation in lingual gyrus was associated with hypnosis. Studying hypnotic suggestions and related brain mechanisms opens an opportunity to understand cognitive functions as well as to examine the scientific nature of hypnosis.