AUDITORY EVOKED POTENTIALS EVIDENCE FOR DIFFERENCES IN INFORMATION PROCESSING BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW HYPNOTIZABLE SUBJECTS

Abstract

N100 and P300 auditory evoked potentials in 2-stimulus oddball paradigm were analyzed in high (HH, n = 18) and low (LH, n = 15) hypnotizable participants under waking condition. LH subjects committed more errors than HH subjects. HH subjects demonstrated shorter N100 latencies at frontal electrodes and significant N100 differences between target and nontarget stimuli (higher N100 amplitude and increased latency at parietal sites to targets vs. nontargets), whereas LH subjects failed to show any differences. The overall increase of P300 amplitude with frontal-central localization of P300 maximum was found in HH subjects compared to LH subjects. The obtained results support the psychophysiological model of HH individuals having more effective frontal attentional systems involved in detecting, integrating, and filtering relevant information.