Investigation into Language: Psychology of Visualisation Perception

Ink blot test:

Hermann Rorschach created the inkblot test in 1921.

The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analysed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both

It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. 

Association, Construction, Completion, Arrangement, and Expression

Ink blots inspired artists such as Leonardo Di Vinci and Victor Hugo in the 15th and 19th centuries. Alfred Binet also suggested using ink blots to assess visual imagination

One advantage of projective tests is that individuals taking the test are free to answer however they see fit. Since projective tests are subjective, participants don't have any constraints on how they answer. The subjectivity of these tests is why psychologists thought that it measured one's most inner thoughts and feelings and/or ones personality. The more unstructured stimuli, the more the participant reveals about themselves.

This contrasts with objective tests where the answers are clearly put into categories and participants are very limited in how they can answer. While objective tests can still measure emotions, thoughts, and personality, the answers are already pre-set thereby limiting the answers of the participant. This in theory, would hinder the process of stating one's most inner thoughts & feelings. Another advantage is the ambiguity of the projective tests makes the purpose of the test unknown. This is an advantage because if participants know what they are being tested for, they are more likely to socially conform and mask their true answers.

Method

• The Rorschach test is appropriate for subjects from the age of five to adulthood. 
• The administrator and subject typically sit next to each other at a table, with the administrator slightly behind the subject. 
• Side-by-side seating of the examiner and the subject is used to reduce any effects of inadvertent cues from the examiner to the subject - thus mitigates the possibility that the examiner will accidentally influence the subject's responses.
• This is to facilitate a "relaxed but controlled atmosphere". 
• There are ten official inkblots, each printed on a separate white card, approximately 18 by 24 cm in size.
• Each of the blots has near perfect bilateral symmetry. 
• 5 inkblots are of black ink, 2 are of black and red ink and 3 are multicoloured, on a white background.
• After the test subject has seen and responded to all of the inkblots (free association phase), the tester then presents them again one at a time in a set sequence for the subject to study: the subject is asked to note where they see what they originally saw and what makes it look like that (inquiry phase). 
• The subject is usually asked to hold the cards and may rotate them. Whether the cards are rotated, and other related factors such as whether permission to rotate them is asked, may expose personality traits and normally contributes to the assessment.
• As the subject is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the subject says or does, no matter how trivial.

Context

The Rorschach is what psychologists call a projective test. The basic idea of this is that when a person is shown an ambiguous, meaningless image (i.e. an inkblot) the mind will work hard at imposing meaning on the image. That meaning is generated by the mind.

By asking the person to tell you what they see in the inkblot, they are actually telling you about themselves, and how they project meaning on to the real world.

As a child, the young Hermann [the creator] was a big fan of a popular game called Klecksographie, so much so that his nickname was Kleck. The idea of the game was to collect inkblot cards that could be bought from local shops and make associations and stories from the inkblots.

Klecksography is the art of making images from inkblots. The work was pioneered by Justinus Kerner, who included klecksographs in his books of poetry. Since the 1890s, psychologists have used it as a tool for studying the subconscious, most famously Hermann Rorschach in his Rorschach inkblot test.

The Rorschach inkblot test is simply a set of cards containing pictures of inkblots that have been folded over on themselves to create a mirror image.

This controversy about the reliability and validity of the Rorschach has been present since its conception. Today, many - probably most - psychologists in the UK think the Rorschach is nonsense. Some psychologists have argued that the testing psychologist also projects his or her unconscious world on to the inkblots when interpreting responses. For example, if the person being tested sees a bra, a male psychologist might classify this as a sexual response, whereas a female psychologist may classify it as clothing.