ABSTRACT
This chapter includes items such as the role of amplification level, or cognitive arousal, in mental functions; factors affecting the reverberation of thoughts; the influence of various types of affective arousal; perceptual inhibition; and the like. It illustrates the various hypnotic programming techniques that are utilized to pursue the conceptual variables experimentally. The four cognitive arousal cues employed in the study clearly demonstrate the expected order of faster to slower responses as cognitive arousal varies from + AA to -AA. Hypnotic techniques also permitted further explorations not possible using conventional methods. A very different application of hypnosis as a research tool arose when hypnotists sought to explore experimentally that portion of the conceptual model relating to the "cognitive feedback loop". The construct of reverberation has its neuropsychological counterpart in the theories of Gerard, Hebb, Eccles, and others. The series of investigations into the concept of cognitive reverberations illustrates the heuristic interplay of conceptual model and hypnotic research methodology.
