THE EFFECTS OF EXTREME ISOLATION ON LONELINESS AND COGNITIVE CONTROL PROCESSES: ANALYSES OF THE LODGEAD DATA OBTAINED DURING THE MARS105 AND THE MARS520 STUDIES

摘要

The LODGEAD study aims to identify the relationship between physical (e.g., confinement) and socialpsychological(e.g. loneliness) stress factors and the executive functions. Data from the Mars105 (Van Baarsen etal., 2009) and the Mars520 (Van Baarsen et al., 2011) studies were collected through (validated) psychologicalquestionnaires, cognitive tasks, and written logs. We hypothesised that during the mission:(1) loneliness will increase, particularly at the end,(2) the expected negative relationships between loneliness and social support will become more pronounced,(3) control processes will be negatively affected, resulting in reduced efficiency.Results from the data collected during the Mars105 and the first seven months of the Mars520 studies supportedthe hypotheses. Overall, feelings of loneliness increased over time, particularly shortly after confinement. Theaverage scores that were measured just before and directly following the confinement showed an increasedpattern for all the loneliness items, though important individual differences were observed. Also, over time, therelationship between (lower) perceived support from colleagues and (higher) loneliness became morepronounced; however, in the long run this negative association was restricted to 3 loneliness items. Regarding theexecutive functions, in both the studies a clear pattern was found in that they reduced their efficacy, as shown bythe backward inhibition decreasing and the switch cost increasing along with the isolation period. Under stressconditions, the inhibitory component of the executive functions became less efficient, thus the representations ofall the tasks remained active and interfered with each other. With regard to the relationships between lonelinessand executive functions, the results indicate that before the isolation, loneliness does not seem to affect theexecutive functions by itself, but that the isolation condition produces a rather general distress that affects thefeeling of loneliness and the ability to cope with multiple tasks. These results might suggest that countermeasurespreventing feelings of loneliness to increase during isolation can also have a positive impact on the executivefunctions.Our results give a first information on the effects of extended isolation on social-psychological (loneliness,professional support) and cognitive adaptation processes, and on the relation between them. The results must beinterpreted with care, as they are based on a small number of participants. In the present study, data collectedduring the full 520 days of isolation will be analysed and discussed according to the hypotheses mentioned above.