the sixty-sixth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C., August 31, 1958. Partial and total isolation of infant monkeys Beginning in 1959, Harlow and his students began publishing their observations on the effects of partial and total social isolation. Partial isolation involved raising monkeys in bare wire cages that allowed them to see, smell, and hear other monkeys, but provided no opportunity for physical contact. Total social isolation involved rearing monkeys in isolation chambers that precluded any and all contact with other monkeys. Harlow et al. reported that partial isolation resulted in various abnormalities such as blank staring, stereotyped repetitive circling in their cages, and self-mutilation. These monkeys were then observed in various settings. For the study, some of the monkeys were kept in solitary isolation for 15 years. In the total isolation experiments, baby monkeys would be left alone for three, six, 12, or 24 months of "total social deprivation". The experiments produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed. Harlow wrote: Harlow tried to reintegrate the monkeys who had been isolated for six months by placing them with monkeys who had been raised normally. The rehabilitation attempts met with limited success. Harlow wrote that total social isolation for the first six months of life produced "severe deficits in virtually every aspect of social behavior". Isolates exposed to monkeys the same age who were reared normally "achieved only limited recovery of simple social responses". Some monkey mothers reared in isolation exhibited "acceptable maternal behavior when forced to accept infant contact over a period of months, but showed no further recovery". Isolates given to surrogate mothers developed "crude interactive patterns among themselves". Opposed to this, when six-month isolates were exposed to younger, three-month-old monkeys, they achieved "essentially complete social recovery for all situations tested". The findings were confirmed by other researchers, who found no difference between peer-therapy recipients and mother-reared infants, but found that artificial surrogates had very little effect. Since Harlow's pioneering work on touch, recent researches have found evidence to support that touch during infancy is very important to health and touch deprivation can be harmful. Pit of despair Harlow was well known for refusing to use conventional terminology, instead choosing deliberately outrageous terms for the experimental apparatus he devised. This came from an early conflict with the conventional psychological establishment in which Harlow used the term "love" in place of the popular and archaically correct