Few autonomic effects of hypnotizability have been shown out of hypnosis. We analyzed the spectral components of the tacogram in not hypnotized subjects with high (Highs) and low (Lows) hypnotizability scores during simple relaxation that is a long-lasting relaxation without hypnotic induction, SR, 45 Ss), a low attentional task (LA) consisting of attention to a relaxing movie (landscapes, 45 Ss) and a moderately threatening (MT) task consisting of attention to the movie "Shining" (35 Ss). ECG was monitored for 15 minutes in each condition. At the end of the experiment subjects were interviewed about their relaxation and activation. The RR distance, its standard deviation (SD), the respiratory frequency (RF), the normalized spectral power of VLF, LF, HF components (VLFn, LFn, HFn) and the LF/HF ratio were analized. The results showed significantly lower VLFn and LF/HF ratio and significantly higher HFn in Highs than in Lows during simple relaxation, when also significantly lower LFn and higher HFn were observed in females with respect to males. During LA no hypnotizability related difference was observed, while gender effects were present and consisted of lower VLFn, LFn and LF/HF ratio and higher HFn in females.No significant group and gender difference was observed during MT in alerted subjects.The results indicate hypnotizability and gender related cardiac control during simple relaxation with lower renin-angiotensin role and higher vagal contribution in Highs. Attention abolishes the effects of hypnotizability, emotion abolishes also the effects of gender