“The dogs wouldn’t jump. All they had to do to avoid electric shocks was leap over a small barrier, but there they sat in boxes in a lab at the University of Pennsylvania, passive and whining. They had previously been given a series of mild shocks and learned they could do nothing to stop them. Now, they had given up trying.” The NYT’s Benedict Carey on the how the architects of CIA interrogation used psychology studies (which they may have misunderstood) to induce helplessness.

+ Vox: From Eminem to Barney, how the CIA used music to break detainees.

+ Vice: Why sound torture hurts.