EXPERIMENTAL INTERFERENCE WITH REALITY CONTACT (PERCEPTUAL ISOLATION)

Abstract

Fourteen paid college student volunteers spent 8 hours lying in a semi-sound-proof room, audition and vision being dominated by patternless, steady inputs. Aspects of intelligence as measured by simple auditory tests before and during the last minutes of isolation showed no consistent impairment, but Ss performed significantly worse or more complex reasoning task given immediately after isolation. Spontaneous verbalizations, recorded and analyzed, indicated: a general feeling of decreased efficiency and continuity in thought, affective disturbances[long dash]so severe in 3 cases that these Ss quit in 50 minutes to 31/3 hours, fantasy often with direct drive content, general increase in the vividness and frequency of imagery (visual and auditory), disturbances in time sense, and miscellaneous other effects reminiscent of the primary process (including depersonalization, body image disturbances and creative activity). Results are interpreted and compared to those of similar studies in terms of the experimental conditions used. The findings suggest a more analytical approach to the phenomenon of hallucination than has previously been customary.