THE EFFECTS OF SHORT-TERM SENSORY DEPRIVATION ON HEART

RATE IN HUMANS

H. Warren and J. Stone

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Abstract

To find the effects of sensory deprivation on human heart rate, 16 college students

had their heart rate measured before and after two walks around the atrium of the Beloit

College Science Center—one without and one with a blindfold. The results showed no

definite pattern, and did not lead to any conclusion in regard to the actual effects of

sensory deprivation on heart rate but did lead to much theorizing on why the results were

this way. It was concluded that in order to observe the effect of sensory deprivation,

subjects must be observed in a closed space for extended periods of time and not exert

themselves physically.

Introduction

The aim of this experiment was to find the effect of sensory deprivation on heart

rate in humans. We took interest in the physiological implications of sensory deprivation

because we know that it is used as a method of information extraction (torture) by the

United States and other governments. We also were interested in human phobias, but

sought to examine fear in a less subjective framework and from a physiological

perspective. Though the experiment had several variables, we chose to focus on only one

half of the trials so that the only variable would be visual deprivation. Much of the

previous research that we examined was found in John P. Zubek’s Sensory Deprivation:

Fifteen Years. Though this book is dated, it provides an extensive amount of information

on sensory deprivation and brings together many different studies from various sources

that proved relevant to our experiment. Another useful source was a 1990 article from the

European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology entitled

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Occupational performance of a paced secondary task under conditions of sensory

deprivation. I. Heart rate changes in train drivers as a result of monotony, which offered

insight into the real causes of perceived rises in heart rate from sensory deprivation.

Similarly, Effect of Distractive Auditory Stimuli on Exercise Tolerance in Patients with

COPD, from the journal Chest, concluded that sensory deprivation raises heart rate when

combined with physical exertion. Most of the information we gathered implied that heart

rate would decrease as a result of sensory deprivation. However, we hypothesized that

short-term sensory deprivation would raise both heart rate and blood pressure as a result

of anxiety, as we did our outside research after the study was completed.

Methods & Materials

The test group for the study consisted of sixteen college students ages 18-22

enrolled in Human Biology. Each student went through two circuits of the experiment. A

walking loop was designed in the atrium of the Beloit College Science Center where test

subjects were led by the Teaching Assistant, Leah. The first time the subject walked

without a blindfold but agreed to keep their eyes on the ground. The second time they

walked the loop with a blindfold. A scarf was used as the blindfold. Eight of the trials

climaxed in a ‘scare’ where a student participant would jump out at a test subject and

surprise them during their walk. Every student was aware that there was a 50% chance

they would be ‘scared’ during their walk. Every subject had their blood pressure and

heart rate taken before they began walking the loop.  They had these measurements taken

again directly after being scared or at the end of the loop if there was no scare. We used a

digital sphygmomanometer to test the blood pressure and heart rate. Heather was in

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charge of taking and writing down the data. The experiment was not conducted in an

isolated environment; there were students and faculty walking through the Science Center

atrium throughout the trials. 

Results

After completing our experiment we assessed that there was no substantial trend

in heart rate change. We felt that results were inconclusive in regards to change in heart

rate in no-scare trials.

We arranged our data on heart rate and blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)

based on gender, and whether the subject was scared and/or blindfolded. We specifically

examined the subjects’ change in heart rate in no-scare trials, with and without blindfold,

as shown in Fig. 1. Each of the eight no-scare participants in the experiment went

through the loop with and without a blindfold. The blue columns represent the change in

heart rate after loops done without a blindfold and the red columns represent the change

in heart rate after loops done with a blindfold, measured by BPM.

Fig. 1

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Discussion

We found in our results that the change in heart rate varied greatly between each

participant. Contrary to our hypothesis, most of the participants exhibited a greater

change in heart rate during the control trial. In Sensory Deprivation, Zubek cites a study

in which the heart rate of participants dropped significantly while they were subject to

sensory deprivation. (Zubek, 61) However, the study that Zubek cites took place over the

course of 8 hours while our trials took at most under 2 minutes. In addition, because 5 out

of 8 of the participants experienced a rise in heart rate after the non-blindfolded trial, we

must assume that the physical exertion of walking around the atrium was responsible in

part for any rise in heart rate, and therefore it cannot be determined how much of the

change in heart rate can be attributed to sensory deprivation.

We feel there were many ways the study could have been improved. We decided

to specifically examine the no-scare test group because we felt that the ‘scares’ were not

constant throughout the experiment. Different student participants had different

approaches to scaring and depending on the person and the sound they chose to make

there was a large variation in how frightening the situation was. We also feel that the

Science Center atrium is not an isolated enough environment to hold a successful sensory

deprivation experiment in because there were too many outside stimuli. We also think

that both the short-term nature of the deprivation and the amount of time it takes to

calculate heart rate post-scare had an impact on the results.

  We also think that a more effective study would use multiple-sense deprivation.

We are curious to see the effect on heart rate if a person were led with their sense of

sight, smell and hearing all blocked. The experiment would no longer include the ‘scare

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factor,’ as frightening a person who cannot see, hear or smell would be difficult, but we

think the study would gain credibility and objectivity.

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Literature Cited

1. Freeman, R. D. "Visual Deprivation." Encyclopedia of Neuroscience (2009).

2. Mitchell, Donald. "The Effects of Selected Forms of Early Visual Deprivation

on Perception." The Visual Neurosciences 1 (2004). 

3. Peter, J.H., W. Cassel, B. Ehrig, M. Faust, E. Fuchs, P. Langanke, K. Meinzer,

and U. Pfaff. "Occupational performance of a paced secondary task under
conditions of sensory deprivation. I. Heart rate changes in train drivers as a
result of monotony." European Journal of Applied Physiology and
Occupational Physiology 60 (1990).

4. Sengpiel, Frank, and Peter Kind. "The Role of Activity in Development of

Review the Visual System." Current Biology 12 (2002).

5. Thornby, M. A., F. Haas, and K. Axen. "Effect of Distractive Auditory

Stimuli on Exercise Tolerance in Patients with COPD." Chest (1995).

6. Zubek, John Peter. Sensory Deprivation: Fifteen Years of Research. New

York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969.