266 HUMAN BEHAVIOR PROGRAM 



utterly hilarious. In addition to the humorous aspects, however, the voice distortion posed a 

 considerable communication problem. 



This problem, to a certain extent, annoyed the divers during the entire 45 days. It often 

 was difficult to communicate a complex idea or set of instructions. For regular conversation 

 regarding food and equipment, however, there was a remarkable amount of adaptation. Al- 

 though postdive questionnaires and interviews revealed that 23 of the 28 divers had initial dif- 

 ficulty in communicating, when asked, "How soon were you able to understand all nine other 

 aquanauts quite well?" the responses showed that 16 divers felt they could in one to two days, 

 eight more by the end of four days, two more by the eleventh day, and one never. 



Each diver stated that the voices tended to get lower in pitch and that the rate of speaking 

 slowed down. Most divers said they learned to recognize voices in two to three days. There 

 always was extreme difficulty in localizing sounds due, it is supposed, to the inherent difficulty 

 of locating high-pitched sounds plus the reverberation characteristics of a closed chamber. 

 Several commented also that their voices did not seem to carry over two to three feet. Whether 

 this was due to high ambient noise level produced by equipment or to the helium atmosphere 

 was not determined. A striking example of the extent to which adaptation took place was 

 brought out when three members of Team 2 entered the habitat prior to Team 1 leaving. Team 

 1 members had so adapted to each other, over the 15-day period, that they were hardly able to 

 understand the three newcomers for several hours. The newcomers were laughed at because 

 of their "high squeaky voices." 



Although once again man's tremendous powers of adaptation were shown, there is much 

 work to be done in this area. Inasmuch as men in a helium environment will always have to 

 communicate with "outsiders," techniques of making the speech understandable will have to be 

 developed. Likewise, future diving operations will require swimmer-to-swimmer communi- 

 cation systems. For these reasons the selected word lists and phrases recorded during Sealab 

 will be carefully analyzed. 



Personal Equipment 



The men spent much time in selecting and preparing their personal equipment. In some 

 cases, they had little choice in the matter, while in others they had complete freedom. Two 

 types of wet suits were available, in three different thicknesses: 3/16 in., 1/4 in., and 3/8 in. 

 Generally, the men preferred the 3/16 or 1/4 in. suits because of greater mobility. In some 

 cases the top of one suit and the bottom of another would be worn. There was no unanimous 

 choice of one particular suit. The experimental heated suit used by a few divers was found to 

 be comfortable and warm, but because of poor fits (resulting in cold water leaking in), was of 

 limited usefulness in Sealab II. The battery packs were felt to be too large and interfered with 

 various activities. This was a prototype suit, and such difficulties are to be expected. The 

 suit is a big step in the right direction. 



Three different kinds of gloves were worn. Mittens were found to be warm, but totally un- 

 satisfactory for doing work. Both the three-finger and five-finger gloves were used satisfac- 

 torily. Preference for these gloves was about equally divided. Four or five divers never wore 

 gloves because they felt they couldn't work with them. On the other hand, some of the individ- 

 ual triangle assembly tasks were satisfactorily done while wearing both three-finger and five- 

 finger gloves. 



The conventional hand tools (wrenches, rope, etc) were found to be satisfactory. All mov- 

 ing parts had to be carefully washed and coated with permalube daily to prevent corrosion. 

 Carrying tools around sometimes presented problems. Whereas one tool could be tucked in- 

 side the wet suit, a diver carrying several had either to tie them on his wrist or use a bag. 

 The development of multipurpose hand tools would help to alleviate some of these problems. 

 Some type of coding to make it easier to find dropped tools would also be of great value. A 

 dive may, at times, have to be aborted because a dropped tool cannot be found. With the advent 

 of underwater living, more sophisticated jobs will be undertaken calling for more sophisticated 

 tools. Collaboration between designers, divers, and human engineers should result in greatly 

 improved tools and/or equipment. 



