FURTHER STUDIES ON THE INFLUENCE OF VERBAL SUGGESTION ON THE PAROTID GLAND RESPONSE TO GUSTATORY STIMULI.

Summary Two gustatory stimuli, water and citric acid, were presented sequentially to 16 subjects with and without direct verbal suggestions that water was sour and that citric acid was tasteless. Half of the subjects had been previously rated as “highly suggestible” and half as relatively “non-suggestible” according to a standardized suggestibility scale. The results showed that: (1) there was no significant variation in parotid secretion rates when the same stimulus was repeated during a single experimental session; (2) direct verbal suggestion significantly altered parotid gland secretion rates in both the “highly suggestible” and the relatively “non-suggestible” subjects.