The endogenous eyeblink and hypnotic susceptibility in a real-simulator design.

This study investigated the relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and the endogenous eyeblink with 27 subjects who were assigned to groups of high susceptibles, low susceptibles and simulators on the basis of cutoff scores from the Harvard Group Scales of Hypnotic Susceptibility: Form A and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales: Form C. Using a repeated-measures design, oculomotor data were collected during two separate conditions, waking and hypnotized, while subjects performed a visual task requiring the discrimination of short light flashes (200 ms) from long light flashes (400 ms). Although results partially replicated previous studies, with high susceptibles blinking significantly less than low susceptibles across both conditions, no effect was found for the hypnotic state. Failure of the simulating group to meet assumptions in the waking condition allowed no conclusions regarding impact of task demands on the endogenous eyeblink.