“This is fair! Um, I approve it in this case. I guess. Only one statement though, if you want to do two in order to compare you have to do a waiting period again and if there are any other effects I might veto it. ...Is that reasonable? Just, since you seemed mostly fine after the first one and didn’t mind being made more curious, I figure the main thing is addiction risk, or doing more on impulse? And I guess I don’t really know but it seems like a waiting period helps with that? But if you think I shouldn’t let you have more than one now no matter what, I can... try to do that.”

"That makes sense. A waiting period is a good idea anyway if I want to compare psychological effects, if I do them at the same time then I won't know what's caused by what. --I'm going to start reading it out loud not into the tape recorder and then if that doesn't work switch to the tape recorder, if it does work I might be lobbying for three."

“...It is probably good that you said that before reading the possibly-addictive statement or else I would have definitely vetoed it. Instead I’ll... see what happens, I guess?”

"Sounds good. --Reading them on paper has some but not all of the psychological effects but that I think I just have to... accept as a risk... because if I can't read things on paper I can't do my job."

“Yeah, that’s... fair, I guess. Though it might add some points in favor of risking it and telling artefact storage to investigate them? I guess it depends some on which effects. Like, the getting in character seems pretty harmless?”

"Yeah, it's just the getting into character, not the tiredness or the curiosity or the satisfaction."

“That’s definitely... better than it could be, then. Okay. Want me to get the tape recorder?”

"Yep!"

(He notices vaguely that Martin is kind of cute. Not that it's going to be relevant.)

Martin returns with the tape recorder! It’s got a bit of cobweb stuck to it from being hidden in a very old corner of document storage for a week and a half. “Which statement do you want?”

"I'll take the WWI one."

He's nervous and excited.

He feels very, very watched as soon as he picks up the statement.

Some things are the same as they were when reading the first statement: the feeling as though he is looking through the Staff Seargant’s eyes, the disproportionate amount of exhaustion. The satisfaction isn’t there, or is so much fainter it’s hard to tell.

The curiosity is there again. 

He finishes.

He writes down his notes on what the experience is like.

He turns to Martin. "Anything interesting happen?"

“Nothing that I could tell?”

"The effects are less dramatic than reading it into a tape recorder. No satisfaction."

He bounces. "Psych tests! Time to see if my personality actually changed!"

His openness to experience is significantly elevated! This is most pronounced in the intellectual curiosity facet and least pronounced in the aesthetic sensitivity facet. His other Big Five traits are normal.

His attachment style has not changed.

His life satisfaction has not changed.

He does not appear to have a behavioral addiction.

His RIASEC scores have not changed.

His dark triad scores have not changed.

His affective empathy is somewhat lowered; his cognitive empathy is somewhat elevated.

Both the ‘stretching’ aspect of curiosity (motivation to seek out new experiences) and the ‘embracing’ aspect (willingness to embrace the unpredictable nature of everyday life) are elevated, but stretching is more so.

His EQ and SQ are both higher than they were, the SQ moreso than the EQ.

His five moral foundations have not changed. 

"Ah HA, Martin, I was RIGHT."

“Is that.... a good thing?”

"The fact that an unknown entity is fucking with my mind is not great. The fact that I can correctly identify when my mind is being fucked with is great! I was not expecting to be this self-aware!"

“Well, that’s fair enough, I guess! What did it do?”

"Mostly a bunch of different ways to say 'more curious'. I'm more empathizing and more systematizing-- fuck you Simon Baron-Cohen-- and I have more cognitive empathy but less affective empathy. That last thing's kind of worrying but it's not showing up anywhere else-- my moral intuitions are the same, I'm not any more sociopathic-- and lots of people behave ethically without much affective empathy. Also I wasn't particularly noted for my innate sense of altruism and ethics to begin with. No addiction but behavioral addiction research is a minefield anyway and I wouldn't trust it too much."

“So, mostly what you already noticed? Other than the, uh, empathy changes.”

"The systematizing is a surprise too. I guess it's sort of curiosity? Systematizing is the drive to try to analyze a system and understand how it works. I don't know why the creator of the questionnaire thought they were opposites, people are the most interesting kind of system to analyze. --I'm happy to have more cognitive empathy, I'm not really very good at understanding people which is a major flaw in a psychologist."

“Oh! Oh, that’s good then. It seems... pretty lucky so far that the changes it makes are things you’re okay with? Unless it’s the increased curiosity making you okay with it, I guess.”

"...I think I would have been happy with it before. Uh. Actually I think before I would be like 'give me give me give me give me I want it' and the only thing that is stopping me from reading every statement into the tape recorder is that I have no idea what it might do that I didn't think to measure."

“...wow. I... don’t know how I would feel about it but I definitely do not think I would be that enthusiastic about it. That... makes me feel a lot better about the amount you want to read them now, actually? Because it’s you, it’s not—just them.”