Sensory deprivation

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File:Camp x-ray detainees cropped.jpg

A prisoner at the United States Camp X-ray facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba being subjected to sensory deprivation, through the use of goggles,ear muffs, visor, breathing mask and heavy mittens.

Sensory deprivation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing respectively, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch, taste, thermoception (heat-sense), and 'gravity'. Sensory deprivation has been used in various alternative medicines and in psychological experiments (e.g., see Isolation tank), and for torture or punishment.

Though short periods of sensory deprivation can be relaxing, extended deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and antisocial behavior.

Isolation tank

Main article: isolation tank

An isolation tank is a lightless, soundproof tank in which subjects float in salty water at skin temperature. They were first used by John C. Lilly in 1954 in order to test the effects of sensory deprivation. Such tanks are now also used for meditation, prayer, relaxation, and in alternative medicine.

Isolation tanks were originally called sensory deprivation tanks. They were renamed because it was found that the terminology of "sensory deprivation" negatively prejudiced people prior to experiencing the use of the device. Dr. Peter Suedfeld and Dr. Roderick Borrie of the University of British Columbia began experimenting on the therapeutic benefits of this technique in the late 1970s. They renamed the technique Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) or Flotation REST.

A therapeutic session in a flotation tank typically lasts an hour. For the first forty minutes it is reportedly possible to experience itching in various parts of the body (a phenomenon also reported to be common during the early stages of meditation). The last 20 minutes often end with a transition from beta or alpha brainwaves to theta, which typically occur briefly before sleep and again at waking. In a float tank the theta state can last for several minutes without the subject losing consciousness. Many use the extended theta state as a tool for enhanced creativity and problem-solving or for superlearning. Spas sometimes provide commercial float tanks for use in relaxation. Flotation therapy has been academically studied in the USA and in Sweden with published results showing reduction of both pain and stress. The relaxed state also involves lowered blood pressure and maximal blood flow.

The five sensory deprivation techniques

Main article: five techniques

The five techniques of wall-standing; hooding; subjection to noise; deprivation of sleep; deprivation of food and drink were used by the security forces in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. After the Parker Report of 1972 these techniques were formally abandoned by the United Kingdom as aids to the interrogation of paramilitary suspects.

The Irish Government on behalf of the men who had been subject to the five methods took a case to the European Commission on Human Rights (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788-94 (European Commission of Human Rights)). The Commission stated that it "considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture".This consideration was overturned on appeal. In 1978 in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial "Ireland v. the United Kingdom" ruled that the five techniques "did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture ... [but] amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is on record in the ECHR judgment that:

These methods, sometimes termed "disorientation" or "sensory deprivation" techniques, were not used in any cases other than the fourteen so indicated above. It emerges from the Commission's establishment of the facts that the techniques consisted of:

(a) wall-standing: forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a "stress position", described by those who underwent it as being "spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers";

(b) hooding: putting a black or navy colored bag over the detainees' heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation;

(c) subjection to noise: pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise;

(d) deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees of sleep

(e) deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the center and pending interrogations.

Sensory deprivation has been widely used as an adjunct to interogation

Main article: Sensory deprivation and interrogation

See also

• Asceticism
• Altered state of consciousness
• Ganzfeld experiment
• Altered States
• John C. Lilly
• Feral child

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See also

• Restricted environmental stimulation therapy

Key texts

Papers

• Grissom, R. J., Suedfeld, P., & Vernon, J. (1962). Memory for verbal material: Effects of sensory deprivation. Science, 138, 429-430.

• Suedfeld, P. (1964). Birth order of volunteers for sensory deprivation. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 68, 195-196.

• Suedfeld, P., Grissom, R. J., & Vernon, J. (1964). The effects of sensory deprivation and social isolation on the performance of an unstructured cognitive task. American Journal of Psychology, 77, 111-115.

• Suedfeld, P., & Vernon, J. (1964). Visual hallucinations in sensory deprivation: A problem of criteria. Science, 145, 412-413.

• Suedfeld, P. (1964). Conceptual structure and subjective stress in sensory deprivation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 19, 896-898.

Suedfeld, P., & Vernon, J. (1965). Stress and verbal originality in sensory deprivation. Psychological Record, 15, 567-570.

Suedfeld, P. (1968). Isolation, confinement, and sensory deprivation. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 21, 222-231.

• Suedfeld, P., Glucksberg, S., & Vernon, J. (1967). Sensory deprivation as a drive operation: Effects upon problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75, 166-169.

• Suedfeld, P. (1968). The cognitive effects of sensory deprivation: The role of task complexity. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 22, 302-307.

• Suedfeld, P. (1968). Anticipated and experienced stress in sensory deprivation as a function of orientation and ordinal position. Journal of Social Psychology, 76, 259-263.

Suedfeld, P. (1969). Sensory deprivation stress: Birth order and instructional set as interacting variables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11, 70-74.

Suedfeld, P., Tomkins, S. S., & Tucker, W. H. (1969). On relations among perceptual and cognitive measures of information processing. Perception & Psychophysics, 6, 45-46.

• Landon, P. B., & Suedfeld, P. (1969). Information and meaningfulness needs in sensory deprivation. Psychonomic Science, 17, 248.

• Suedfeld, P., & Landon, P. B. (1970). Motivational arousal and task complexity: Support for a model of cognitive changes in sensory deprivation.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 83, 329-330.

• Suedfeld, P., Landon, P. B., Epstein, Y. M., & Pargament, R. (1971). The role of experimenter and subject expectation in sensory deprivation. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 2, 21-27.

• Suedfeld, P. (1971). Evanescence of sensory deprivation effects: A comment on Oleson and Zubek's "Effect of one day of sensory deprivation...". Perceptual and Motor Skills, 33, 753-754.

• Landon, P. B., & Suedfeld, P. (1972). Complex cognitive performance and sensory deprivation: Completing the U-curve. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 34, 601-602.

• Suedfeld, P., & Smith, C. A. (1973). Positive incentive value of phobic stimuli after brief sensory deprivation: Preliminary report. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 36, 320.

• Suedfeld, P. (1973). Sensory deprivation used in the reduction of cigarette smoking: Attitude change experiments in an applied context. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 3, 30-38.

• Suedfeld, P., & Ikard, F. F. (1973). Attitude manipulation in restricted environments: IV. Psychologically addicted smokers treated in sensory deprivation. British Journal of Addiction, 68, 170-176.

• Suedfeld, P., & Buchanan, E. (1974). Sensory deprivation and autocontrolled aversive stimulation in the reduction of snake avoidance. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 6, 105-111.

• Suedfeld, P., & Ikard, F. F. (1974). The use of sensory deprivation in facilitating the reduction of cigarette smoking. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 888-895.

• Suedfeld, P. (1975). The benefits of boredom: Sensory deprivation reconsidered. American Scientist, 63, 60-69.

• Suedfeld, P. (1975). The clinical relevance of reduced sensory stimulation. Canadian Psychological Review, 16, 88-103.

• Tetlock, P. E., & Suedfeld, P. (1976). Inducing belief instability without a persuasive message: The roles of attitude centrality, individual cognitive differences, and sensory deprivation. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 8, 324-333.

• Suedfeld, P., & Hare, R. D. (1977). Sensory deprivation in the treatment of snake phobia: Behavioral, self-report, and physiological effects. Behavior Therapy, 8, 240-250.

• Suedfeld, P. (1976). The use of sensory deprivation in the treatment of claustrophobia: Another study in the development of a panacea. The Worm Runner's Digest, 18, 93-95.

• Suedfeld, P., & Best, J. A. (1977). Satiation and sensory deprivation combined in smoking therapy: Some case studies and unexpected side-effects. The International Journal of the Addictions, 12, 337-359.

• Suedfeld, P. (1977). La utilizacion de la privacion sensorial en el cambio de actitudes. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicologia, 9, 489-494.

• Landon, P. B., & Suedfeld, P. (1977). Complexity as multidimensional perception: The effects of sensory deprivation on concept identification. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 10, 137-138.

• Suedfeld, P., & Borrie, R. A. (1978). Sensory deprivation, attitude change and defence against persuasion. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 10, 16-27.

• Rank, D., & Suedfeld, P. (1978). Positive reactions of alcoholic men to sensory deprivation. The International Journal of the Addictions, 13, 805-813.

• Suedfeld, P., & Borrie, R. A. (1978). Altering states of consciousness through sensory deprivation. In A. A. Sugerman & R. E. Tarter (Eds.), Expanding dimensions of consciousness (pp. 226-252). New York: Springer.

Additional material

Papers

• Google Scholar
• Leiderman,P.H, and Stern, R. Herbert (1961)Selected bibliography of ssensory deprivation and related subjects.Harvard Medical School

External links

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