Zoltan Dienes - The Cold Control Theory of Hypnosis

Here’s some notes from this lecture on cold control theory.

The idea behind the Cold Control Theory is to develop the simplest theory that can account for all hypnotic phenomena.

The idea behind higher order theories is that they distinguish between content about the world from mental states. For instance, the first (higher) order content would be “The tree is green.” The second order content would be “I see that the tree is green.” The first order content can be unconscious - but in order for you to be aware (have conscious thought) about something, you need second order content (the I see part.)

Not all first order content is perceptual. Intentions are also included in this group. For instance, the imperative content to “lift the arm” would be the first order thought. Even though this is a command, rather than a description, it is about the world - or, your arm. It’s worth noting this is a simple intention. The second order thought would be “I intend to lift the arm.” Without this second order thought, you would be unaware of your own intention.

A Note About Executive Control

“Executive control” (EG - overcoming a habit) can be unconscious with the HOT theory. This is because we could have this intention without being aware that we produced this intention.

(An example of this would be traveling to a familiar location, but knowing you want to make a stop at 7/11 to get snacks. You would need executive control to overcome this habit and alter your route - but you may be unaware of this HOT. )

Higher Order Thoughts and Cold Control

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The Cold Control Theory of Hypnosis

Hypnotic response forms an intention (in the executive system) to perform the behavioral or cognitive cation without forming higher order thoughts (HOTs) about intending that action. Instead, we form inaccurate higher order thoughts to the effect that one did not intend the action.

“And maybe that’s why hypnosis seems so strange and bizarre… Is precisely because… It’s executive control… without higher order thoughts… about the intentions that constitute that executive control.”

Cold control picks out a common mechanism in the opposing camps of Dissociation approaches (Hilgard) and the more skeptical Socio-cognitive approaches (Spanos.) It also contradicts some theories within those camps.

Compatible Theories

• Hilgards Dissociation theory - the ‘amnesic barrier’ between the cognitive control structure and conscious self.
• Spano’s Socio-cognitive theory - social context affects far more than we give it credit for. We misattribute the cause of our actions under (social) hypnotic influence. The response is intentional, but the cause is misattributed.

Incompatible Theories

• Dissociated Control theory (Woody & Bowers 1994) - hypnotic responses are not intentionally produced - the executive system is weakened, like a “functional prefrontal lobotomy.” There’s just automatic triggering of the relevant cognitive control structures. This isn’t cold control because this is about not having intentions. Cold control means having intentions, but not being aware of them.
• Response Expectancy Theory (Irving Kirsch 1985) - The expectancy that someone will respond a certain way can cause that response non-volitionally. Hypnotic response is just like placebo, in Kirsch’s theory. This is incompatible - because expectancy replaces intention in this theory.

Arguments Against Incompatible Theories

• (Argument against socio-cognitive) Expectations do not fully predict hypnotic response (as in Response Expectancy Theory.)
• (Argument against socio-cognitive) Hypnotic Analgesia does not behave like placebo analgesia.
• (Argument against dissociation theories) Hypnotic response can involve habit inhibition (executive function.) Some dissociation/state theories suggest that there is no executive function as a component of hypnotic response.

Implementing Cold Control

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It’s perfectly normal to go through life having intentions without forming higher order thoughts about them - like scratching an itch, or shifting or fidgeting. However some intentions, at least those maintained over a few minutes, trigger HOTs of intention. Perhaps highly-hypnotizable people are good about avoiding accurate HOTs.

Preventing HOTs

According to HOT theory, the HOTs of intention awareness is sensitive to same influences as any order thought. That lines up with socio-cognitive approaches, where since there is the expectation that the act will occur involuntarily, the HOTs of intention never occur. While response expectancy theory is incompatible with cold control, expectancy does still affect the creation of HOTs.

This explains the small increase in hypnotic response after induction - it increases expectancy. Hypnotic response is equivalent to the increase in expectancy after induction.

However, we cannot use expectancy as the sole explanation for hypnotic response. If we placed our keys somewhere, looked away, and had a gnome steal them while we weren’t looking, we wouldn’t hallucinate our keys being there where we left them.

We would only hallucinate the keys if we intended to hallucinate them. (Hypnotic hallucinations, in general, benefit from being contextually appropriate.)

There are some neat notes about brain activity and imagination at 22:40.

Brain Stuff

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(I’m a bit sketchy on my understanding of this section.)

In a study in a visual discrimination task, they were able to shift the higher order thought of accuracy, while maintaining the same level of accuracy. Through this, they found the area of the brain responsible for this “guessing vs knowing” check was the mid dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. (Mid DLPFC.) They lovingly nicknamed it the HOT box. 😅 Through this, this is the brain region responsible for creating accurate higher order thoughts.

Sooo, in another study, they decided to slap around this HOT box with repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS.) This should help improve hypnotic response, since the region responsible for forming HOTs is beat up and worn out (temporarily.) Zapping this section increased hypnotic response. (The effect was minor, but noticeable.) This study has been replicated. (Also, they admit it was unlikely that they always nailed the right spot with the rTMS.)

“It’s really like we gave someone a great big kick in the head, and afterward, we found a change in hypnotic response.”

Booze Stuff

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Guess what else abuses the DLPFC? Booze. In a study, they got folks pretty drunk (giving them 2.5 pints of beer.) There was a significant increase in response.

(The study is from Semmens-Wheeler, Dienes, and Duka 2013 if you care to look it up.)

Hypothesis

Disrupting frontal regions, including the DLPFC increases suggestibility. The frontal regions help with metacognition, and hypnosis is intrinsically metacognitive.

This is not conclusive evidence, yet.

Ego Depletion

Baumeister’s idea is that there’s something akin to a ‘willpower muscle.’ So, they tried wearing the subjects out by giving them a difficult task. (There are reasons to not buy into the idea of willpower in the first place.) However, we could accept that we are attempting to disrupt the executive system itself.

After wearing the subjects out - their responsiveness decreased. From this, we can take away that the reduction in executive resources due to rTMS or Alcohol abuse is not the cause of the increased suggestibility.

There is the possibility that “ego depletion” does not affect metacognition or accuracy of higher order thoughts.

Hypnosis and Meditation

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Hypnosis and meditation both involve absorption and attentional regulation, and are both effective treatments for stress, depression, and pain.

For the purposes of this section, we’re speaking specifically about mindfulness meditation.

From a cold control perspective, mindfulness meditation and hypnosis are opposites. Mindfulness is about observing accurate HOT, and hypnotic response requires inaccurate HOT.

According to another study - there is a difference in hypnotic response between regular meditators and normal folks. In the study, hypnotic response was lower in meditators. (However, take this one with a grain of salt. In addition, this is correlational, not causal. This is being actively investigated.)

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Since meditators have (allegedly) more accurate HOTs, they should be able to more accurately tell the exact time they formed a motor intention, and highs will take longer. This was reinforced with a study - the highs taking the longest, and the mediators taking the shortest time. (Mediums, lows, and mediators were actually able to sometimes notice their intention before the motor movement. ) In a follow up study, using a general mindfulness scale instead of looking for meditators, they were also able to find a positive correlation between hypnotizability and late intention awareness, as well as a negative correlation with mindfulness.

High vs Low Dissociators

There may be more than one pathway to being highly hypnotizable.

They compared high-dissociator highs to low-dissociator highs in a Ganzfeldt experiment. The low-dissociator highs may just be better at not letting their attention wander.

They conjecture that high dissociators have “weak HOT coupling,” and low dissociators have “strong HOT control.”

Or - put more clearly - kicking someone in the frontal lobes may be the high dissociative pathway to strong hypnotic response. For the low dissociators, there might be a skill they build for controlling HOTs.

Predictions and Tests of Cold Control Theory

1. Anything that can be done outside hypnosis can be done as a hypnotic suggestion. You don’t lose any abilities in hypnosis.

• (Executive function) Forgetting the number “four” can be seen as overcoming a habit, with or without forming a higher order thought about it.
• (Executive function) Suggesting to forget a word, then doing a word association game, they’ll report that word less than baseline. It’s not amnesia, it’s habit modification.
• (Executive function) Many hypnotic suggestions include things about not-attending to memories with cues right in front of you. (Amnesia, negative hallucination, analgesia, etc.)

2. You cannot do anything as a hypnotic suggestion that you cannot do otherwise - it just changes the feeling of automaticity. You don’t get superpowers in hypnosis.

• With pain, both claims are controversial. Dissociation theorists claim there is a distinctly dissociative hypnotic pain control mechanism. Sociocognitive theorists suggest argue people just use strategies they had anyway, but make them feel involuntary. However, we do know hypnotic analgesia is not the same pathway as placebo. (Placebo works via opioid pathways, hypnotic analgesia does not seem to do this.)
• Color synesthesia suggestions showed no difference between hypnotic suggestion and non-hypnotic suggestion in highs.
• The “Raz” suggestion (words will be a meaningless foreign script, reducing the Stroop Interference Effect) is not hypnotic. Highs were just better at taking the suggestion than the lows. Highs showed equivalent reduction in Stroop interference with or without an induction. (Or - in support of cold control, the volitional quality of the suggestion did not affect response. )
• Feelings of volition and reality can be altered without induction.

Why Hypnosis/Cold Control Exists

If we use the Cold Control definition of hypnosis - this has happened cross-culturally. Namely in spirit possession and religious rituals. It’s possible that volitional accuracy is good enough, but this malleability may have been actively selected for.

• Depressed about death? Don’t worry about it, god’s got you bro. Spirit possession / seeing images is a powerful convincer of god.
• Sociological functions - you do behaviors you were not responsible for. A person could acquire power via spirit possession. Cold control would also be the ideal way to be possessed - as it has contextual appropriateness in it’s (unaware) intention.
• I’m not Joe I’m a spirit! Shower me in gifts, or be damned.
• “Because you are deceiving yourself, you are able to more effectively deceive others, thereby gain full advantage…”
• We’re using the tools of spirit possession in hypnosis.