Drop 3: The Refrigerator Studies
Dr. Voss has survived the garage. So has the gazebo and the subject.
This week she moves into more controlled conditions. As the scientific method demands - she has moved from her initial observation to the core scientific steps of making an observation, forming a hypothesis, and conducting an experiment. And, of course, make sure it can be repeated and tested by others. So she create a laboratory, of sorts. Specifically, a refrigerator. Or rather, seventeen of them, across seven countries, four continents, with results that are consistent in a way that she describes as both scientifically significant and personally draining. There is a lot of both. A lot.
This is Part Three of The Caecitas Masculina: A Field Study. If you are new here, start with Part One. If you are already here, you know what to expect. You are probably already thinking of someone specific. Please refrain from pointing to them in public.
The cheese is on the middle shelf. It has always been on the middle shelf. Always.
Chapter Three: The Refrigerator Studies
The refrigerator is the natural habitat of Caecitas Masculina in its purest form. If Caecitas Masculina can rescue anything from a burning house, it would be the refrigerator if it wasn’t so heavy. His collection of old charging cables, broken tools, extra screws and bolts, and a variety of instruction manuals come a close second.
Dr. Voss conducted seventeen refrigerator studies across seven countries and four continents. She had to fly economy class. She is deeply committed to science. She is also tired.
The methodology was consistent. One male subject. One clearly visible item. One closed door to start. Standard kitchen lighting. No distractions. No sport on television or Fast and Still Very Furious LVI showing anywhere.
The results were consistent in a way that made Dr. Voss feel both vindicated and slightly sad. Maybe more than slightly sad. Sad and exhausted.
Study 3, Switzerland. Item: a block of cheese, yellow, with holes in it, approximately the size of a paperback novel, on the middle shelf in the direct center of the refrigerator. On the the front edge of the shelf. Subject searched for four minutes and eleven seconds before declaring the cheese finished. The cheese was not finished. The cheese was on the middle shelf. The subject moved the cheese out the way to look behind it. It was always there. In the center of the refrigerator. Subject closed the door and made toast. Without cheese.
Study 7, Australia. Item: a carton of orange juice, front of the shelf, bright orange label facing outward, next to nothing else. Subject opened the refrigerator, looked directly at the orange juice, closed the refrigerator, opened a cupboard, looked inside the cupboard for reasons neither Dr. Voss or anyone else could determine, and then returned to the refrigerator where he found the orange juice … on the counter behind him. And only after a second attempt. He placed it on the counter when he removed it to look for the orange juice behind the orange juice. When asked what had changed between the first and second attempt, subject said he looked properly the second time. He did not. Dr. Voss asked him to define properly. Subject changed the subject.
Study 12, United States. Item: leftover pizza in a clear container with the word PIZZA written on the lid and on the sides in permanent marker by the subject’s wife, who had anticipated this moment. She left it at eye level with the words pizza on the side facing the subject. Subject could not find the pizza. Closed the fridge, put his hand to his mouth and scratched his head, and opened the fridge again. Still nothing. Bumped his head on the shelf the pizza was on and stood up with a smile and uttered quietly to himself “ah-a!”. Subject opened the freezer. Found old pizza from three weeks prior. Frozen. Warmed it up in the microwave. Ate that instead. While standing at the counter drinking a beer he found behind the pizza container in the fridge. Never mentioned the container. The container is still there. Dr. Voss checks periodically. So does the subject.
In all seventeen studies, the item was found. Eventually. In thirteen of the seventeen cases, it was found by someone else. One person, the Australian, found it on the counter where he placed when trying to look behind it on the shelf. In the remaining three cases, the subject found it only after being given directions specific enough to constitute a treasure map.
“I can’t find it!”
“It’s on the middle shelf.”
“Which one is the middle shelf.”
Silence.
“The one in the middle.”
“Of the fridge?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but which side.”
Dr. Voss has a folder of these transcripts. It’s a big folder. She finds them professionally invaluable and personally exhausting. She also feels sorry for the subject and those affected by his condition.
To be continued - Chapter 4 (Selective Auditory Processing) drops next week.