Psychology: experiment trapped 15 people in a cave for 40 days without a sense of time

Would you agree to live in a cave for 40 days, surrounded by complete strangers and without access to a telephone, watch or natural light, just for the sake of science?

An extreme ‘world-first’ experiment is to see that 15 people do just that to investigate the effects of long-term isolation on the human body without having an idea.

The French volunteers, who are not remunerated for their participation, are between 27 and 50 years old and include a biologist, a jeweler and a maths teacher.

The team was sequestered in the Lombrives Cave in Ariège and has four tons of supplies to live with – along with water from the cave and a pedal-driven dynamo for electricity.

Mission leader Christian Clot, who is one of the participants, was inspired to take the test after seeing how the COVID-19 pandemic isolated our lives.

However, the explorer received criticism in the French press for accepting the title ‘researcher’ while having no formal scientific training.

The ‘Deep Time’ experiment started at 20:00 local time on Sunday 14 March – and if all is planned, it will end on 22 April.

The findings of the project may be relevant to future space missions, diving crews, mining teams and other institutions if people have been locked up for long periods of time.

Deep Time follows in the footsteps of French geologist Michel Siffre, who spent a long period underground, including one six-month period in 1972.

He found that the circadian cycle of the human body can vary from time to time from the stimuli of natural light.

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“Losing time is the biggest disorientation out there, and it’s the aspect that the Deep Time mission wants to better understand,” the team said on their website.

“During certain events, our perception of time changes – it seems to pass very slowly or very quickly, and it does not relate to the reality of every passing second.”

‘What happens then? How do you feel about time? What is the relationship between cognitive and biological time, between the brain and genetic cells? ‘

‘What is the connection between observed time and normative time, that of our clocks? How do we see brain time? ‘

To answer these questions, the project leaders said that the fifteen participants on the surface will be monitored by a dozen-strong team of scientists using data collected by a variety of sensors.

One of the contestants – 29-year-old Arnaud Burel – told Oddity Central that he agreed to take part in the unusual experiment of tasting this timeless life, which is impossible outside with our computers and cell phones constantly reminding us. of our appointments and obligations. ‘

However, the biologist added that he agreed that it would not be easy to spend almost six weeks in a cave with 14 strangers, and that he believed that communication would be the key to ensuring their time together expires.

In the Lombrives – the largest cave in Europe by volume – the team will be forced to adapt to the constant temperature of 12 ° C and a humidity of 95 percent.

In the cave, ‘three separate living spaces have been set up – one for sleeping, one for a living room and one for studies on the topography of the place, especially the flora and fauna,’ Clot told Le Parisian.

The experiment was funded with a total of € 1.2 million (£ 1 million) from both public and private funding sources.

“This experiment is a first world,” neuroscientist Etienne Koechlin of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris told Belgian news website 7sur7.

“So far, all missions of this type have focused on studying the physiological rhythms of the body, but never on the impact of this type of temporary rupture on human cognitive and emotional functions,” he added.

More information about the experiment can be found on the Deep Time website.