Temporal organization of recall during posthypnotic amnesia.

Amnesia suggestions were administered to 35 subjects of low, medium, and high hypnotic susceptibility who had learned a word list while hypnotized The method encouraged subjects to organize the words sequentially. Organization of recall was measured on recall trials conducted before, during, and after suggested amnesia. Highly hypnotizable subjects showed a breakdown in temporal organization during amnesia, followed by a recovery of this organization after the suggestion was canceled Posthypnotic amnesia apparently involves a disruption in the contextual relationships among memory items.