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Dr Donald Hebb on dangers of sensory deprivation
Identifier
006373
Type of Spiritual Experience
None
Background
A description of the experience
Dr. Donald Hebb [Speaking 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.