Psychophysiological studies in altered sensory environments

Perceptual Isolation As a Stress Situation

“…One also wonders if these athletic 5j were stressed more by the kinesthetic than by the visual and auditory restrictions. Con¬ sidering the small Vs on which the correla¬ tions in both groups are based (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15) it is unfortunate that the authors did not replicate the first study with a similar population. sources, and time sense distortion) in the Field-Oriented (or "Field-Dependent") than in the Body-Oriented (or "Field-Inde¬ pendent") -S\s\ Goldberg19 used Rorschach and Figure-Drawing scores to define FieldDependency and found that four Field-De¬ pendent Ss scored significantly higher on a questionnaire scale of maladaptive response to two hours of water tank immersion isola¬ tion than four Field-Independent (BodyOriented) Ss.…”

“…How¬ ever, too much "togetherness" had the op¬ posite effect for when they used 11 married couples side-by-side in twin respirators, only one couple remained eight hours. The mar- (7) Shurley (49) Davis et al (14) Davis et al (13) Mendelson et al (36) Wexler et al (57) Zuckerman et al (65) Cohen et al (10) Cleveland et al (8) Freedman et al (16) Harris (24) Henrichs (25) Holt & Goldberger (28) 6, difl. light Difl. light * Sub.…”

“…This kind of sensitization seems to represent a failure to adapt to isolation in that the S refuses to give up his "field-orientation" and shift his atten¬ tion to internal events. 10. Reported Visual and Auditory Sensa¬ tions ("Hallucinations," "Images").-The literature on these has been discussed in a prior review.66 Although some experi¬ menters i·48·53 have reported groups with few or no reported sensations, most experi¬ menters have reported some 6\r giving them.…”

The Effect of Immobilization and Sensory Restriction on Children with Phenylketonuria

“…Abundant recent experimental data on both animals and man suggest that sensory deprivation and sensory isolation, even of short duration, can profoundly affect psychophysiologic performance [4]. The adaptation patterns reported resemble those seen in PKU and concern activity and arousal patterns, problem-solving behavior, perceptual functioning, and characteristics of thinking and fantasy.…”

“…The severity of the aftereffects of sensory restriction and immobilization is thought to be related to (a) the degree of physical immobilization [26], (b) the number of sensory modalities affected [28], and (c) the knowledge on the part of the subject as to the prospective duration of the sensory restriction [4]. This last factor, in particular, may be of importance in relation to the results of the present study.…”