Hypnosis Used In Court Cases

Hypnosis has been used in the past to help people recover certain memories. The memories recovered have used in court cases as evidence and verdicts made based on the memories; however, are these memories accurate? Should they be used in court cases as true and accurate memories? In the case study Accuracy of Recall by Hypnotically Age-Regressed Subjects, these questions are answered.
Overall, the memories recovered using hypnosis are inaccurate. They should not be used in court cases and held as true. In the study Accuracy of Recall by Hypnotically Age-Regressed Subjects, the researchers tested a total of 30 undergraduate students from Ohio University. 16 of these students were assigned to a group that would be put under hypnosis and asked questions. The other 14 students were assigned to a group, …show more content…
During hypnosis and after they were taken out of hypnosis both groups would be asked questions. The questions asked were about transitional objects they remember as children. The answers of the questions being the dependent variable, and actually being put under hypnosis or pretending to be being the independent variable. The accuracy of the recollections were determined by reports from the test subjects parents, only 24 of the test subjects. The results show that during hypnosis 21% of recollections were hits and 79% were misses. Hits meaning the recollections were accurate, misses meaning they were not accurate. The results after hypnosis show that 36% of recollections were hits and 64% were misses. The results of the control group show that 70% of recollections were hits and 30% were