Introduction The purpose of this research paper will be to evaluate experimental and non-experimental studies which have been conducted on the subject of hypnosis. The experimental study selected for this research will be one conducted by Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon and Holland (1985) which sought to determine whether hypnosis or cognitive retrieval mnemonics was useful for enhancing the memory of eyewitnesses during police interviews. The authors assessed previous research which had been conducted on eyewitness memory retrieval where they noted that the success of a criminal-investigation mostly relied on the accuracy and complete account of events given by an eyewitness. The main findings of previous research conducted on eyewitness recall showed that accounts given by eyewitnesses were usually unreliable, inaccurate and incomplete (Geiselman et al, 1985). The purpose of the study was therefore to identify appropriate methods (hypnosis, cognitive mnemonics) which could be used to enhance the accuracy of eyewitness accounts and also test whether these methods could be controlled empirically. The authors sought to determine whether hypnosis was a useful technique for enhancing the memory of witnesses during police interviews, basing their studies on previous research conducted by Reiser in 1974 and also Schafer and Rubio in 1978. The hypothesis that was being tested by Geiselman et al (1985) was whether cognitive interviews, hypnosis interviews or standard control interviews were effective in optimizing eyewitness memory performance (Geiselman et al, 1985). The second study to be focused on in this research paper is a non-experimental study conducted by Graham (1982) on the use of hypnosis and eyewitness recall during police interviews. Graham bases his study on previous research which has called for the use of hypnosis as an important tool for aiding the memory of eyewitnesses during police investigations. His analysis of past research has revealed that law enforcement agencies in the US, UK and Israel have made use of hypnosis techniques during the interviewing of eye witnesses. This technique has however proved to be limited when dealing with the hypnotic susceptibility of eye witnesses involved during the interrogation exercise (Graham, 1982). The purpose of Graham’s study was therefore to assess the evidence that supported the use of forensic hypnosis in extracting useful information from eye witnesses who were not hypnotically susceptible. The empirical evidence that Graham was testing in his non-experimental study came in the form of laboratory experiments and anecdotal reports which had been conducted in previous studies to determine the memory facilitation of individuals through the use of hypnosis. Graham in his study sought to answer whether hypnosis was an effective tool in determining the memory recall of witnesses (Graham, 1982). Methods The study conducted by Geiselman et al (1985) made use of an experimental design where the authors sought to compare the effectiveness of the three techniques used by law enforcement officers when interrogating eye witnesses. These three techniques were cognitive interviews which were based on the retrieval of mnemonics, the standard control police interview and the use of hypnosis. The three methods were evaluated through the use of a controlled and ecologically valid laboratory setting where eighty-nine subjects were placed in these laboratory settings to vie