Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

Kapp

Posted
Mai 5, 2008 - 10:07am

Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

Hi all,

I have a sci fi script that I am starting to put together...

It's a complex story with a lot of spiritual meaning behind it, some relation to the works of Orwell (1984) but also some relation to Logan's Run & THX 1138

It is a future society that has outlawed all art and creativity, they see those things as the gateway to sin and evil, so have eliminated all "creative activities" in order to make a "morally upright" and "righteous" society...

In their goal to do this, they have even outlawed all colors exept white. People live in all white giant domes with all white interiors, all white houses within, wear all white clothes, white rooms, white dinner tables, white tools,......

What would be the psychological effect of this type of deprivation? How would people become if they had lived their whole lives with just the color white? Morose? Insane?

I know that sensory deprivation for infants can be unhealthy for their development - are there scientific studies of this though?

Meepster

101 pages

Posted
Mai 5, 2008 - 8:19pm

RE: Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

Even if the only color they saw was white, as children, they would still develope healthily if they had other kinds of stimulation- interesting toys and if they were talked to a lot.
However, with the world you set up, it seems like babies and young children would not have very interesting surroundings. In that case I think they would be kind of uncommunicative, would just freeze up when scared, and wouldn't make a lot of noise. They could sit still for a long time, and wouldn't talk to each other much.
If they were raised in an environment where people talked to them and they had toys and could interact with other babies and people of different ages, in spite of only the color white, they could grow up fairly normally.
If you want to know, in either case, I imagine they'd be slightly colorblind.

Hope this helped!

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Screnzy 07 + No Name + EPIC FAIL
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Kapp

Posted
Mai 6, 2008 - 8:45am

RE: Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

Much Thanks....got some good perspectives to add to this story...appreciate the feedback

Torak

102 pages

Posted
Mai 6, 2008 - 2:57pm

RE: Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

And of course they'd be likely to have pretty poor night vision; in effect, they'd all develop pretty serious levels of snow blindness, and perhaps adapt over a few generations to have less light-sensitive eyes.

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SF08 - Mary Celeste, horror
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theanab

184 pages

Posted
Juni 2, 2008 - 10:08am

RE: Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

Check out Louis Lowry's the Giver on this one--they live in a society like that.

Kapp

Posted
Juni 19, 2008 - 1:14pm

RE: Effect of "Sensory deprivation" on a society

much thanks, I actually had heard of that book previously, but have not read it yet