Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 83: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION asked Kratt, watching keenly. “This is where the Weiss- Karnfeld test really begins, chief. The technician will start the flicker.” He pressed a button on the monitor unit, causing a red light to wink on the console in the test room. The technician threw a switch, extinguishing all illumination, and then, a few seconds later, a brilliant lamp, close to the girl’s eyes, came on. There was acurious, unstable quality about the light which prompted Kratt to ask: ““What kind of lamp is that?’ “Just an ordinary gas- discharge—but of high lumin- osity. It is painfully bright. And it flickers—from peak white to black—sixteen times per second. Now look at the alpha trace.” Kratt scrutinised the screen once more. The green alpha peaks were still there, but the smooth outline was broken by a series of pips—one in each side of the undulations. The distortion of the wave shape was slight, but readily discernible. “There you have the effect of visual sense data, super- 82 imposed on the basic rhythm —in spite of the synapsin. _ Flicker frequency, sixteen; alpha frequency, about eight —so you get two pips to each cycle.” “Hm. Interesting,’ Kratt grunted. “Now what?” “Now Lieutenant Pope will read out each of the seven probable situations over an intercom system. The girl will hear them via a small speaker close to her ears. The moment she recognises the true situation—the one which she must not reveal— her synapse resistance will increase. It must increase, because the effect of the synapsin is to hinder recogni- tion. The moment that hap- pens, the visual flicker pips on the screen will diminish in size—perhaps even disappear —leaving a clean alpha rhythm. That is the Weiss- Karnfeld test—the determina- tion of recognition, whether conscious or subconscious, by observing the effect of classified information from the Logical Analyser on the artificial flicker modulation, superimposed on the alpha rhythm of the brain.” connicloookks.comn)