Experiments in the human zoo

Tracey's glasses make her world appear upside-down

By west of England correspondent Jane O'Brien

Volunteers in Bristol, UK, have started a series of human experiments to see how the mind reacts when stressed and thrown into confusion.

One is wearing glasses that will turn the world upside down, others will be deprived of sleep, and two more will be taught to swing a golf club in the hope of finding the point at which the body seems to take control from the mind.

The experiments are taking place at Explore@Bristol - the city's hands-on science centre - and will be televised over Christmas as part of the BBC's Are You Superhuman? series.

Director John Kent says the aim of the programmes is to learn more about how the mind and body perform.

Stressed out

"We have put the volunteers into different situations, be it mental stress or physical stress or challenges.

John Kent: Exploring mind-body interaction

"What we hope is that the audience watching this will see how the body and mind deal with these different situations, and maybe they'll be able to apply that to themselves and improve their own physical and mental performance," he said.

For seven days, psychology student Tracey Peters will wear a pair of glasses with a mirror attached to a baseball cap. Everything she sees will be upside-down and back-to-front.

Whenever she takes them off she will wear a blindfold to make sure her brain isn't given a chance to re-adjust to normality.

Knife and fork

Simple tasks like writing or eating are proving to be most difficult. "When writing, for some reason, I can't tell where to put the second letter after the first," she said.

Tracey's glasses make the most everyday tasks a struggle

"That's the hardest thing. And using a knife and fork is very bizarre. When I try to bring my knife to meet my fork, I can't.

"Even if I stop to think about it, I keep going the wrong way so I'm bringing it towards me instead of away."

All the volunteers will undergo physical and metal tests throughout the trials to see how the disruption to their systems affects their performance.

Big Brother style

Experiments in sleep deprivation have been carried out before, but Vicky Fox, Ian Thorpe and Oliver Burke, who hope to stay awake for 60 hours, consider their experiment a personal challenge.

Experiments take place inside a 'human zoo'

The two men believe that how they all get on will largely contribute to the success of the study.

"I think we're going to have to interact as a group," says Oliver. Ian says: "If we don't, that's when we'll falter. We need a bit of camaraderie to help each other along. But I think that will be a problem in itself."

"If we've all been with each other for so many hours, I don't think we will like each other very much at the end of it!"

In true Big Brother style, the experiments are being conducted inside a "human zoo" - a caged area inside the science centre that pedestrians outside will also be able to view.

The volunteers will be filmed by a BBC webcam and visitors to Explore@Bristol will be able to watch and ask them questions. Online viewers can contact them via the BBC website.