On Self-Assessed Mood and Efficiency During Long-Term Isolation

Abstract

In the 1960s, when plans were made to construct an underground isolation unit at Andechs, little was known about the effects of long-lasting isolation on mood and well-being, but sensory deprivation was a much discussed issue among psychologists (Solomon et al. 1961). I visited one of the laboratories where such experiments were done, and I was warned that to live in isolation for days and weeks would probably be harmful. It was considered essential that we should keep an eye on our subjects continuously, either via one-way windows or by closed-circuit TV. We refrained from doing so, and it turned out that nothing serious ever happened. Contrary to the expectations of psychologists, our subjects usually enjoyed staying in the unit, and many agreed to come a second time. It is partly for this reason that we have made little effort to study in detail the feelings of our subjects in the course of an experiment (Wever 1979, 1982). The present report demonstrates that various self-assessed measures of mood correlate in a systematic manner with the duration of wakefulness.