Theories Of Recollection Of Childhood Objects

Sometimes, it is difficult to recall a certain event from your childhood. Whether it is the first time you played a sport or even the root cause of a particular fear, it is challenging to perfectly recall a memory from so long (or even not so long) ago. So how do you obtain a better recollection of something like that? According to Journal of Abnormal Psychology, “Accuracy of Recall by Hypnotically Age-Regressed Subjects”, four colleagues; Nash, Drake, Wiley and Khalsa, suggested hypnosis and tested their theory. The scientists created three hypotheses. The first being that the recollections of childhood objects will less accurate with the experimental group (a group of 16 people who were highly susceptible to hypnotism who actually were hypnotized) than with the control group (those who were not hypnotized but pretended that they were).

The last hypothesis stated that both hypnotized and post hypnotized subjects will report recollection of childhood objects, whether they were accurate or not. They did a long series of experiments, involving both subjects and their parents. When the subjects would recall certain childhood objects, the parents would tell what the actual objects were. Thus, verifying the accuracy of the subjects’ recollections. The scientists were correct in all of their hypothesis. According to the Table 1 (299), in the hypnotic recollection (by the subjects who were hypnotized), only 3 of 14 subjects accurately recalled childhood objects. Similarly, in the post-hypnotic