Our Brain is Sensitive For Social Information

Hypnosis has helped researchers verify the fact that the brain is receptive to social information. Everyday actions are analysed by the brain and the journal Consciousness and Cognition report the findings of neuroscientists Professor Dr. Albert Newen and Professor Dr. Martin Brune amongst others.

Hypnosis was used to analyse bottom-up attention participants were viewed placing coins into large bowls and there was an estimation of what would happen due to the hypnotise. An ECG was used and mu-suppression was analysed and as suspected, it was stronger when the person involved was hypnotised. Albert Newen believes that the work they have carried out proves that the reason humans are different to animals is because of social competence.

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As humans, we are attracted to things that we can see yet there is little research as to how changes in attention can alter the way the views are analysed even though the answer would allow us to see how such changes shows processes like action understanding.

Hypnosis was used to induce an increase in bottom-up attention. The ECG u-wave suppression was recorded while patients were hypnotised while they were offered first and third person intentional actions. The results showed that hypnosis builds up u-suppression when humans are viewing actions that were intentional.

The suggestion is that the processing of social action is improved when there are predominant bottom-up attentional processes. The findings have given credence to the Social Relevance Hypothesis stating social action processing is an attentional process that is bottom up driven and can be changed.

Source: Katharina Gregor – RUB

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