Paper on sensory deprivation etc.

[zellerzone]

The group to which this was posted has become polluted with spam,
alas.

http://groups.google.com/group/sensory-isolation-deprivation/browse_thread/thread/4c2fd4eace01fafc#

[zellerzone]

Since the poster of this paper has also posted to this group, I
figured I would add it here.
I wish to ask him...
1) Are you in fact the author?
2) Did you ever complete the promised expanded version?

submissivepatient
View profile
More options Aug 1 2008, 11:59 am
My APA Paper on Isolation, Sensory Deprivation & Sensory Overload
by: Valtin
Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 13:00:29 PM EDT
Crossposted at Invictus
The following is the text of a paper I presented on Sunday, August
19,
2007 to an audience of about three hundred at the American
Psychological Association (APA) convention in San Francisco,
California. It is, in fact, an abstract of a much longer paper now in
the final stages of preparation. Its brevity was dictated by the very
short time speaking time allowed. I have included my bibliography
here
for those interested.
As many are no doubt aware, the APA Council of Representatives passed
a resolution on psychologist participation in coercive interrogations
that was long on rhetoric, but far short on substance. In essence,
the
APA legitimized psychologist practice in settings where indefinite
detention occurs, along with sensory and sleep deprivation, sensory
over-stimulation, and use of drugs (as long as not for the purpose of
eliciting interrogation).
My paper was written with the intent to document the long history of
behavioral science collaboration with abusive interrogation research,
particularly around the subject of sensory deprivation (SD). I did
not
have time in this paper to address the strong observational and
naturalistic evidence of the debilitating effects of isolation and
SD,
and readers will have to await my longer, published paper.
It is also worth noting that the negative effects of SD are
powerfully
amplified by the overall context of the coercive and abusive
environment in the prison or detainee environment. In fact, as
regards
interrogation or conditions of prisoner incarceration, SD is never
used alone, but in combination with other coercive techniques.
Valtin :: My APA Paper on Isolation, Sensory Deprivation & Sensory
Overload
Isolation, Sensory Deprivation, and Sensory Overload: An Historical
Overview
"The abuse of knowledge causes incredulity." - Rousseau
The use of isolation and sensory deprivation at U.S. foreign prisons,
the detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, and the Charleston Naval
Brig
in South Carolina has been well documented. Physicians for Human
Rights has an excellent pamphlet called "Break Them Down" that offers
an overwhelming amount of documentation. The important thing to
understand about the use of psychological torture is that the
conditions of detention are inexorably intertwined with the
techniques
of interrogation.
This presentation is a historical look at the research project that
was sensory deprivation, conducted 35-50 years ago, in which
psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists worked for the CIA
and the Pentagon to understand the effects of sensory deprivation,
and
which ended in making sensory deprivation, and later sensory
overload,
an integral part of the U.S. coercive interrogation paradigm. One
obvious problem with this research is the lack of any controlled
experiments upon actual prisoners. A less obvious but even more
serious problem concerns lack of access to classified materials and
studies, especially given that much of the research was done by
intelligence and military entities and kept secret.
The beginnings of concentrated psychological research into the
manipulation of sensory and perceptual stimulation began early in the
Cold War in the late 1940s-early 1950s. Donald Hebb, a past president
of the American Psychological Association and an important
theoretician in psychology, was an early researcher into sensory
deprivation's effects upon adult human beings.
Dr. Hebb explained his involvement at a Harvard symposium on sensory
deprivation in June 1958.
The work that we have done at McGill University began, actually,
with the problem of brainwashing. We were not permitted to say so in
the first publishing?. The chief impetus, of course, was the dismay
at
the kind of "confessions" being produced at the Russian Communist
trials. "Brainwashing" was a term that came a little later, applied
to
Chinese procedures. We did not know what the Russian procedures were,
but it seemed that they were producing some peculiar changes of
attitude. How?
One possible factor was perceptual isolation and we concentrated
on that. (Solomon 1961)
Marks (1979) describes the atmosphere in behavioral and psychiatric
research in the 1950s and early 1960s:
Nearly every scientist on the frontiers of brain research found
men from secret agencies looking over his shoulders, impinging on the
research.
University of Virginia bioethicist Jonathan Moreno, wrote recently
(Moreno 2006):
To a great extent, modern psychology and social science were
founded on the financial support they received from national
intelligence agencies during and after World War II.... These close
ties remained after hostilities against the Axis powers ended. In the
early 1950s, nearly all federal funding for social science came from
the military, and the Office of Naval Research was leading sponsor of
psychological research from any source in the immediate postwar
years.
The CIA found ways to support a large number of Ivy League academics,
often without the professors' knowledge, as its funds were passed
through dummy foundations that often gave grants to other
foundations.
(p. 65)
Besides Hebb's research at McGill, other centers of extensive
research
on sensory deprivation during the period under consideration included
many U.S. and Canadian sites, including, but not limited to:
Princeton
University; the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda,
Maryland; Boston City Hospital and Harvard University; the Naval
Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland; the University of
Manitoba; the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the Research Center
for Mental Health at New York University; Cornell University; various
VA hospitals, and many others.
By the mid-1970s, however, there was a steep drop-off in published
literature on sensory deprivation. The reason for this is unknown,
but
could be due to controversies over revelations of these and other
programs by the military and CIA (Greenfield 1977). The decline in
research is also coincident in time with the cancellation of the
CIA's
MKSEARCH program, the successor of MKULTRA, in June 1972.
In any case, the use of isolation and sensory deprivation was
continued by U.S. intelligence agencies, as evinced by the CIA's 1983
Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual (HRETM) (CIA 1983). What
follows is a selection of relevant quotes, presented here as giving
an
intelligence operational view of the effects of sensory deprivation
and overload:
The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological
regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to
bear
on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a
reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses,
his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological
order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the highest
creative activities, to deal with complex situations, to cope with
stressful interpersonal relationships, or to cope with repeated
frustrations. (CIA 1983, p. K-1)
As regards deprivation of sensory stimuli, the CIA training manual
explains:
Solitary confinement acts on most persons as a powerful stressor.
A person cut off from external stimuli turns his awareness inward and
projects his unconsious [sic] outward. The symptoms most commonly
produced by solitary confinement are superstition, intense love of
any
other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as alive,
hallucinations, and delusions...
Deprivation of sensory stimuli induces stress and anxiety. The
more complete the deprivation, the more rapidly and deeply the
subject
is affected...
Some subjects progressively lose touch with reality, focus
inwardly, and produce delusions, hallucinations, and other
pathological effects. (CIA 1983, pp. K-6, K-7)
The conclusions of the anonymous authors of the CIA manual are
congruent with many of the findings of psychological and psychiatric
researchers over the previous three to four decades. Princeton
psychologist Jack Vernon examined the effects of sensory deprivation
and isolation on a group of 18 volunteer graduate students and
reported the results in 1958. He found that sensory deprivation had
"a
significant and essentially deleterious influence upon the subjects",
as measured by tests measuring rotary pursuit ability, color
perception, motor coordination, mirror tracing, body weight, and
galvanic skin resistance (Solomon 1961). The longer the period of
sensory deprivation, the more marked the influence.
In the early research literature, one outstanding feature was the
variability of results across experimental conditions. One important
and misunderstood variable concerned the presence or absence of
hallucinations in different individuals. This variability was due, in
part, to a lack of standardization of variables, of controls, of
definitions, in addition to personality and neuropsychological
factors.
One finding that held across multiple experiments was the
susceptibility of the deprivation subject to suggestibility (Solomon,
1961; Zubek 1969; (Hebb 1970). One researcher, Peter Suedfeld,
concluded:
Susceptibility to external influence, including both primary
suggestibility and persuasibility, is clearly increased by SD. The
data indicate that this phenomenon originates with the lack of
information anchors in the SD situation: the subject is at loose
ends,
without guidelines for his behavior, unable to concentrate, and in a
state of stimulus- and information-hunger? (Suedfeld 1969, p. 166)
The question of personality variables and their influence upon
isolation and deprivation results was tackled early on. Goldberger
and
Holt (Solomon 1961; Goldberger 1961) found that the ability to handle
primary process internal stimuli, as well as other measures of ego-
strength, differentiated individuals better able to adapt to sensory
deprivation and isolation environments than individuals who scored
low
on these variables. The government found the influence of personality
variables to be very important in planning interrogations, and a
large
part of psychologist participation in interrogations is related to
personality assessment (CIA 1963).
Over the years, researchers discovered other effects of the sensory
deprivation situation. One researcher concluded that the evidence was
substantial: "both simple and complex measures of visual and motor
coordination are adversely affected by sensory and perceptual
deprivation" (Zubek 1969). Cognitive tests show "considerable
impairment? on unstructured behaviors" (p. 165).
A fairly robust finding was that sensory deprivation increases
sensitivity to pain, at least in its initial stages (Solomon 1961).
At
a symposium held in April 1956 by the Group for the Advancement of
Psychiatry, researcher Harold Wolff reported:
We also have reason to believe that the painful experience is one
that has a highly symbolic significance and is closely linked with
feelings of isolation and rejection, especially when imposed by other
human beings under hostile circumstances. (Vernon 1956)
In their paper from the 1958 Harvard symposium, Ruff, Edwin and
Thaler
(Ruff 1961) described various reactions to reduced sensory input.
Examining both military and civilian volunteers at experiments done
at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, they described a series of
experiments utilizing varying levels of sensory deprivation and
conditions of isolation. They found that by the last experiment, in
which the conditions allowed the least specific amount of structuring
of time duration, communication, or other activities, that a high
number of subjects terminated the experiment early, unable to
tolerate
the conditions of the procedure and displaying "impending or partial
breakdown of defenses" (p. 76).
In his article for the book The Manipulation of Human Behavior
(Biderman 1961), Lawrence Hinkle, Jr. (1961) described how isolation
and sensory deprivation could produce a state of disordered brain
function (DBF) similar to that produced by disturbance of brain
homeostasis through fever, hypothermia, dehydration, blood
abnormalities, shock, hemorrhage, vomiting, and starvation.
Individuals with DBF experience thinking difficulties, along with
"illusions, delusions, hallucinations, and projective or paranoid
thinking" (p. 26).
Hinkle concluded:
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been
isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its
features to the "brain syndrome" [see also (Grassian 1983)]... They
become dull, apathetic, and in due time they become disoriented and
confused; their memories become defective and they experience
hallucinations and delusions?. their ability to impart accurate
information may be as much impaired as their capacity to resist an
interrogator...
From the interrogator's viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal
way of "breaking down" a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated,
it
seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires:
malleability and the desire to talk, with the added advantage that
one
can delude himself that he is using no force or coercion?. However,
the effect of isolation on the brain function of the prisoner is much
like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved, or deprived of
sleep.
Hebb (1970) succinctly described the effects at a presentation at the
1970 APA convention: sensory deprivation can produce "an acute
disturbance of the normal personality". It is an "atrocious
procedure," which "raises the whole question of the relation of man
to
his sensory environment". Hebb noted, "making the isolation more
drastic produces motivational and emotional disturbance more
quickly".
Sensory Overload
While there was for many years a multitude of studies on isolation
and
sensory deprivation, studies on excessive sensory stimulation were
far
fewer, and less focused (however, see Lindsley, 1961). Lipowski
(1975)
conducted a literature review of the research extant some 30 years
ago. He reported on some of the work of the Japanese researchers at
Tohoku University, whose reports echoed the methodological
difficulties of the deprivation researchers in the U.S. Their
results,
however, were significant.
The Tohoku workers exposed their experimental subjects to intense
auditory and visual stimuli presented randomly in a condition of
confinement ranging in duration from 3 to 5 hr. The subjects showed
heightened and sustained arousal, found sensory overload more
aversive
than deprivation, and had mood changes in the direction of
aggression,
anxiety, and sadness. Two subjects reported "hallucinationlike"
phenomena. (Lipowski 1975)
Other U.S. researchers have replicated these results. Use of sensory
overload has been a technique utilized by SERE schools, and has
reportedly been transmitted to use by U.S. military and intelligence
interrogators abroad (Streatfeild 2007).
In conclusion, sensory manipulation is well studied; its effects on
interrogation have been known for over a generation. The belief that
we don't have enough research on these matters is unfounded. The use
of sensory deprivation and overload constitutes torture, is outlawed
by international treaties and agreements, and illegal under U.S. law.
Active psychologist participation at facilities where it exists
constitutes a war crime and should be abandoned immediately.
J------ K-----, Ph.D.
San Francisco, CA
August 19, 2007
Bibliography
Biderman, A. D. Z., Herbert, Eds. (1961). The Manipulation of Human
Behavior. New York, John Wiley & Sons.
CIA. (1963). "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation." Retrieved
August 15, 2007, 2007, from http://www.gwu.edu/~....
CIA. (1983). "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual."
Retrieved
July 30, 2007, from http://www.gwu.edu/~....
Goldberger, L. & Holt, R. R. (1961). A Comparison of Isolation
Effects
and their Personality Correlates in Two Divergent Samples. New York,
Research Center for Mental Health, New York University: 1-52.
Grassian, S. (1983). "Psychopathological effects of solitary
confinement." American Journal of Psychiatry 140: 1450-1454.
Greenfield, P. (1977). CIA's Behavior Caper. APA Monitor: 1, 10-11.
Hebb, D. O. (1970). "The Motivating Effects of Exteroceptive
Stimulation." American Psychologist 25(4): 328-336.
Lipowski, Z. J. (1975). "Sensory and Information Inputs Overload:
Behavioral Effects." Comprehensive Psychiatry 16(3): 199-221.
Moreno, J. D. (2006). Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense.
New York Dana Press.
Ruff, G. E. L., Edwin Z.; & Thaler, Victor H. (1961). Factors
Influencing Reactions to Reduced Sensory Input. Sensory Deprivation:
A
Symposium Held at Harvard Medical School. P. Solomon, et al. , Eds.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press: 72-90.
Solomon, P., Kubzansky, Philip E., Leiderman, P. Herbert, Mendelson,
Jack H., Trumbull, Richard, & Wexler, Donald , Eds. (1961). Sensory
Deprivation: A Symposium Held at Harvard Medical School. Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press.
Streatfeild, D. (2007). Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind
Control.
New York, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press.
Vernon, J., M. Meltzer, D. Tyler, Weinstein, E. A., Brozek, J., &
Woolf, H. (1956). Factors Used to Increase the Susceptibility of
Individuals to Forceful Indoctrination: Observations and Experiments.
Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, Asbury Park, NJ, Group for
the Advancement of Psychiatry.
Zubek, J. P., Ed. (1969). Sensory Deprivation: Fifteen Years of
Research. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, educational division.
Tags: American Psychological Association, history of psychology,
isolation, sensory deprivation, Sensory Overload, torture, (All Tags)