Did you see Horizon on Tuesday night? If you didn’t catch it, check it out while you can on the BBC iPlayer; it’s the most interesting (and disturbing) programme I’ve seen for quite some time.
Interesting because of the basic premise; six people volunteered to be shut away in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation for 48 hours just so that Horizon could monitor the effects. Disturbing because of what some of those effects were and what they might mean for the wider world.
All of the subjects were nervous but excited in the lead up to the 48 hours of the test, but as the time to be locked away grew closer, they all got less excited and more nervous. Most of them just wanted to get on with it and get it over. I expected that not all would make it through the two days.
The group of six was split into two; one group were put into small rooms with no light, no sound and nothing to do. The second group were not shut in the dark, but they did have to wear goggles that prevented them from seeing anything clearly, headphones that played them white noise all the time, and padding around their hands and arms to shut off their sense of touch. Both groups were otherwise unencumbered and could move about freely, sleep when they wanted and so on.
None of the subjects were locked in, all could leave at any time; they were also monitored constantly to make sure that they were not suffering extreme psychological effects and they were kept fed and watered.
Prior to entering their rooms, each subject was given a series of tests to benchmark their mental ability – with particular focus on recall and suggestibility. At the end of the two days, they were tested again. And it’s the differences in the two sets of results that is most disturbing.
Yes, hallucinations and all the other mental strains that the six exhibited are disturbing but greater than that is the change in their ability to tell truth from lies; all of the men scored significantly worse on their suggestibility tests after the experiment than they did before. If you don’t think this has any bearing in the real world, think about all those Guantanamo Bay prisoners held in solitary confinement, all those self-confessed murderers who only confessed after an extended stay in solitary. As one of the researchers said, this change in suggestibility came after only two days – during which they had not been ill-treated; what sort of change could you expect from someone who’s been locked up for months and possibly been tortured, certainly been badly treated? Isn’t it reasonable to think that you could convince them that white was black if that’s what you wanted to do?
