The seated deputy said, “In many of those taking Substance D, a split between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the brain occurs. There is a loss of proper gestalting, which is a defect within both the percept and cognitive systems, although apparently the cognitive system continues to function normally. But what is now received from the percept system is contaminated by being split, so it too, therefore, fails gradually to function, progressively deterioriating. Have you located the familiar object in this line drawing? Can you find it for me?”
Fred said, “You’re not talking about heavy metals trace deposits in the neuronecepton sites, are you? Irreversible—”
“No,” the standing deputy said. “This is not brain damage but a form of toxicity, brain toxicity. It’s a toxic brain psychosis affecting the percept system by splitting it. What you have before you, this BG test, measures the accuracy of your percept system to act as a unified whole. Can you see the form here? It should jump right out at you.”
“I see a Coke bottle,” Fred said.
“A soda pop bottle is correct,” the seated deputy said, and whipped the drawing away, replacing it with another.
“Have you noticed anything,” Fred said, “in studying my briefings and like that? Anything slushed?” It’s the speech, he thought. “What about the speech I gave?” he said. “Did I show bilateral dysfunction there? Is that why I’ve been hauled in here for these tests?” He had read about these split-brain tests, given by the department from time to time.
“No, this is routine,” the seated deputy said. “We realize, Officer Fred, that undercover agents must of necessity take drugs in the line of duty; those who’ve had to go into federal—”
“Permanently?” Fred asked.
“Not many permanently. Again, this is percept contamination that could in the course of time rectify itself as—”
“Murky,” Fred said. “It munks over everything.”
“Are you getting any cross-chatter?” one of the deputies asked him suddenly.
“What?” he said uncertainly.
“Between hemispheres. If there’s damage to the left hemisphere, where the linguistic skills are normally located, then sometimes the right hemisphere will fill in to the best of its ability.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Thoughts not your own. As if another person on mind were thinking. But different from the way you would think. Even foreign words that you don’t know. That it’s learned from peripheral perception sometime during your lifetime.”
“Nothing like that. I’d notice that.”
“You probably would. From people with left-hemisphere damage who’ve reported it, evidently it’s a pretty shattering experience.”
“Well, I guess I’d notice that.”
“It used to be believed the right hemisphere had no linguistic faculties at all, but that was before so many people had screwed up their left hemispheres with drugs and gave it—the right—a chance to come on. To fill the vacuum.”
“I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for that,” Fred said, and heard the mere mechanical quality of his voice, like that of a dutiful child in school. Agreeing to obey whatever dull order was imposed on him by those in authority. Those taller than he was, and in a position to impose their strength and will on him, whether it was reasonable on not.
Just agree, he thought. And do what you’re told.
“What do you see in this second picture?”
“A sheep,” Fred said.
“Show me the sheep.” The seated deputy leaned forward and rotated the picture. “An impairment in set-background discrimination gets you into a heap of trouble—instead of perceiving no forms you perceive faulty forms.”
Like dog shit, Fred thought. Dog shit certainly would be considered a faulty form. By any standard. He …
The data indicate that the mute, minor hemisphere is specialized for Gestalt perception, being primarily a synthesist in dealing with information input. The speaking, major hemisphere, in contrast, seems to operate in a more logical, analytic, computerlike fashion and the findings suggest that a possible reason for cerebral lateralization in man is basic incompatibility of language functions on the one hand and synthetic perceptual functions on the other.
… felt ill and depressed, almost as much as he had during his Lions Club speech. “There’s no sheep there, is there?” he said. “But was I close?”
“This is not a Rorschach test,” the seated deputy said, “where a muddled blot can be interpreted many ways by many subjects. In this, one specific object, as such, has been delineated and one only. In this case it’s a dog.”
“A what?” Fred said.
“A dog.”
“How can you tell it’s a dog?” He saw no dog. “Show me.” The deputy …
This conclusion finds its experimental proof in the split-brain animal whose two hemispheres can be trained to perceive, consider, and act independently. In the human, where propositional thought is typically lateralized in one hemisphere, the other hemisphere evidently specializes in a different mode of thought, which may be called appositional. The rules or methods by which propositional thought is elaborated on “this” side of the brain (the side which speaks, reads, and writes) have been subjected to analyses of syntax, semantics, mathematical logic, etc. for many years. The rules by which appositional thought is elaborated on the other side of the brain will need study for many years to come.
… turned the card over; on the back the formal stark simple outline of a DOG had been inscribed, and now Fred recognized it as the shape drawn within the lines on the front side. In fact it was a specific type of dog: a greyhound, with drawn-in gut.
“What’s that mean,” he said, “that I saw a sheep instead?”
“Probably just a psychological block,” the standing deputy said, shifting his weight about. “Only when the whole set of cards is nun, and then we have the several other tests—”
“Why this is a superior test to the Rorschach,” the seated deputy interrupted, producing the next drawing, “is that it is not interpretive; there are as many wrongs as you can think up, but only one right. The right object that the U.S. Department of Psych-Graphics drew into it and certified for it, for each card; that’s what’s right, because it is handed down from Washington. You either get it or you don’t, and if you show a run of not getting it, then we have a fix on a functional impairment in perception and we dry you out for a while, until you test okay later on.”
“A federal clinic?” Fred said.
“Yes. Now, what do you see in this drawing, among these particular black and white lines?”
Death City, Fred thought as he studied the drawing. That is what I see: death in pluriform, not in just the one correct form but throughout. Little three-foot-high contract men on carts.
“Just tell me,” Fred said, “was it the Lions Club speech that alerted you?”
The two medical deputies exchanged glances.
“No,” the standing one said finally. “It had to do with an exchange that was—actually—off the cuff, in fact, just bullshitting between you and Hank. About two weeks ago … you realize, there’s a technological lag in processing all this garbage, all this raw information that flows in. They haven’t gotten to your speech yet. They won’t in fact for another couple of days.”
“What was this bullshitting?”
“Something about a stolen bicycle,” the other deputy said. “A so-called seven-speed bicycle. You’d been trying to figure out where the missing three speeds had gone, was that it?” Again they glanced at each other, the two medical deputies. “You felt they had been left on the floor of the garage it was stolen from?”
“Hell,” Fred protested. “That was Charles Freck’s fault, not mine; he got everybody’s ass in an uproar talking about it. I just thought it was funny.”
BARRIS: (Standing in the middle of the living room with a great big new shiny bike, very pleased) Look what I got for twenty dollars.
FRECK: What is it?
BARRIS: A bike, a ten-speed racing bike, virtually brand new. I saw it in the neighbor’s yard and asked about it and they had four of them so I made an offer of twenty dollars cash and they sold it to me. Colored people. They even hoisted it over the fence for me.
LUCKMAN: I didn’t know you could get a ten-speed nearly new for twenty dollars. It’s amazing what you can get for twenty dollars.