Three experiments investigated the similarity between the process of Directed Forgetting (DF)
and Posthypnotic Amnesia (PHA). The first suggested that the processes are not the same in
that high and low susceptible subjects responded differently under the two conditions.
Experiment 2 varied the context in which high susceptible subjects were administered DF
instructions. Subjects showed the usual DF effect when outside the hypnosis context but
not when in it, indicating a context effect. In the third study high and low susceptibles
were tested for DF outside the hypnosis context. Both highs and lows showed DF out of the
hypnosis context. Highs in the hypnosis context showed a similar pattern without DF instructions,
lows did not. The conclusion was that social psychological theories are a better choice than
theories of memory functioning to explain the results of the contextual effects.