Control-Plate Regression (CPR) Normalization for High-Throughput Screens with Many Active Features.

Systematic error is present in all high-throughput screens, lowering measurement accuracy. Because screening occurs at the early stages of research projects, measurement inaccuracy leads to following up inactive features and failing to follow up active features. Current normalization methods take advantage of the fact that most primary-screen features (e.g., compounds) within each plate are inactive, which permits robust estimates of row and column systematic-error effects. Screens that contain a majority of potentially active features pose a more difficult challenge because even the most robust normalization methods will remove at least some of the biological signal. Control plates that contain the same feature in all wells can provide a solution to this problem by providing well-by-well estimates of systematic error, which can then be removed from the treatment plates. We introduce the robust control-plate regression (CPR) method, which uses this approach. CPR's performance is compared to a high-performing primary-screen normalization method in four experiments. These data were also perturbed to simulate screens with large numbers of active features to further assess CPR's performance. CPR performs almost as well as the best performing normalization methods with primary screens and outperforms the Z-score and equivalent methods with screens containing a large proportion of active features.

What this field needs is a good nomological network.

Research in the field of hypnosis lacks a coherent structure on which to build. This lack of a mature nomological network stems from fundamental disagreements concerning the construct validity of hypnotizability, which in turn stem in part from different research practices across laboratories. For these reasons, the field has had less impact on psychology and medicine than is warranted by the numerous sophisticated scientific studies that have been conducted during the past three decades.

Idiographic approaches to hypnosis research (or how therapeutic practice can inform science).

We argue that both nomothetic and idiographic research strategies can advance scientific knowledge of therapeutic hypnosis. In particular, practitioners can make idiographic contributions to the scientific literature in a manner that will be received positively by a growing number of behavioral scientists. Broad methodological issues and concerns specific to hypnosis research are discussed.

Laterality of hypnotic response.

In an investigation of hemispheric activity during hypnosis, a total of 1269 Ss received hypnotizability scales containing suggestions targeting the left or right side of the body. There were no consistent differences in response strength on the left compared to the right side. Nor were there differences in hypnotizability between right- and left-handed (and ambidextrous) Ss, or between Ss who sat on the left versus right side of the testing room. Definitive evidence of lateralized cerebral activity associated with hypnosis and hypnotizability can only come from direct neuropsychological, electrocortical, or brain-imaging investigations.

Absorption and hypnotizability: context effects reexamined.

Two independent studies failed to find evidence consistent with Council, Kirsch, and Hafner (1986), who argued that the repeatedly observed correlations between Tellegen's (1981) Absorption Scale (TAS) and hypnosis measures were artifacts of testing context, and de Groot, Gwynn, and Spanos (1988), who claimed evidence for a Gender x Context moderator effect. In the present studies, Ss completed the TAS and other personality questionnaires on 2 occasions: during an independent survey and later immediately prior to an assessment of hypnotizability. In Experiment 1 (N = 475), the effect of context on the relation between questionnaire scores and hypnotizability was weak and variable; in Experiment 2 (N = 434), these weak effects were reversed. The results reaffirm the construct validity of absorption as both a major dimension of personality and as a predictor of hypnotic responsiveness.

Hypnotizability, preference for an imagic cognitive style, and memory creation in hypnosis.

We sought to extend the finding (Laurence & Perry, 1983) that it is possible through hypnosis to create a pseudomemory of a specific event. Subjects were compared on their responses to a hypnotic suggestion. We also examined the relation between nonhypnotic measures (Preference for an Imagic Cognitive Style [PICS] test and the Tellegen Absorption Scale [TAS]) and response to the suggestion. Highly (45.45%) and moderately-highly (46.15%) susceptible subjects believed that the pseudomemory was veridical, but none of the low susceptible subjects did so. Together, hypnotic susceptibility, the PICS, and their interaction more strongly predicted pseudomemory creation than any of these main effects alone. Performance on the TAS was also related to the occurrence of pseudomemory, but this relation was redundant with performance on the other measures. These results point to the complexity of the variables involved in pseudomemory creation during hypnosis.

Daydreaming, absorption and hypnotizability.

The revised form of the Absorption Scale extracted from Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen, 1981; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) and the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory (Huba, Aneshensel, & Singer, 1981), a self-report questionnaire concerned with daydreaming activity, were administered to 2 samples of Ss (N = 479, N = 476), who also received the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (Shor & E. Orne, 1962). In both samples, hypnotizability was significantly correlated with absorption (average r = .24) and with a subscale measuring positive-constructive daydreaming (average r = .13). Absorption and positive-constructive daydreaming were also highly correlated (average r = .57). Of the subscales of the positive-constructive daydreaming scale, only those relating to positive reactions to daydreaming, and problem solving in daydreaming, consistently correlated with hypnotizability. Daydreaming and absorption each share some features in common with hypnosis, but they appear to have more in common with each other.

Multiple predictors of hypnotic susceptibility.

In this article, we report two experiments in which various measures thought to be related to hypnotizability were analyzed by stepwise discriminant analysis techniques. Absorption (Tellegen, 1981, 1982; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) and preference for an imagic style of thinking (Isaacs, 1982) were robust predictors of hypnotizability; each variable accounted for significant variance in hypnotizability at their respective steps in two samples and correctly classified a significant proportion of low- and high-hypnotizable subjects in the discriminant analyses. The addition of two other variables in Experiment 2--a Sleep-Dream score derived from Evans's (1977) Cognitive Control of Sleep Mentation subscale and Gibson's (1985) Dream Questionnaire, and the Belief in the Supernatural subscale of the Taft (1969) Experience Questionnaire--increased the correct classification of the medium-hypnotizable subjects from chance levels to 74%. It is argued that a confirmatory and hierarchical approach is needed in future studies to explore correlates of hypnotizability more fully.