Elucidating the role of suggestion in the cognitive control of attention

暗示能影响认知吗？至少有一些证据表明答案是肯定的。认知研究越来越多地通过实验来解决这个新生的问题，在认知控制和注意力领域最为普遍。注意力控制着调节认知、情感、思想和行动的能力。暗示可以影响表现的观点很可能建立在某些形式的暗示（例如催眠暗示）与行为结果之间的直觉联系上，在行为结果中，操作者控制着参与者的注意力。与我的同事们一起，我们已经能够证明对被认为是弹道、非自愿和不受注意的经典心理影响的调节甚至完全消除。这个研究项目考察了是否有可能超越高度练习的，甚至可能是自动的反应，以及我们还需要了解什么才能清楚地了解暗示是如何运作注意力的。

Can suggestion influence cognition? At least some evidence proposes that the answer is affirmative. Cognitive research is increasingly addressing this nascent question experimentally, nowhere more prevalently than in the domain of cognitive control and attention. Attention governs the ability to modulate cognition, emotion, thought, and action. The idea that suggestion can influence performance may well rest on the intuitive connection between certain forms of suggestion -- for example, hypnotic suggestion -- and behavioural outcome, where the operator controls the participant's attention. Together with my colleagues, we have been able to demonstrate the modulation and even the complete elimination of classic psychological effects that are considered to be ballistic, involuntary and immune to attention. This research program examines whether it is possible to override highly practiced, possibly even automatic, responses, and what else we need to understand into order to obtain a clear picture of how suggestion can operationalize attention.