Abstract
In order to study the spontaneous production of visual patterns without structured input under the condition of several days of sensory deprivation, the observations of one person over 108 and 128 hr. were tape recorded, one study including immobilization, the other acoustical isolation. The phenomena depended on illumination and on time from start. Very bright light suppressed imagery, bright daylight was associated with moving bright commas, average daylight in the room produced irregular patterns of darker circles, later multiple apparent objects composed of circular elements, often in geometrical arrays. There was a different style of phenomena with closed eyes: colored spots, later showing textural qualities, movements of elements and areas, flickering brightness changes, jumping white lines, and also pictures with dark backgrounds. Phenomena are interpreted as randomly arising events of dark-perception, inhibition, color perception, and as patterns arising from complex functions that have been studied in constancy phenomena.
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