PERSONALITY TEST,
TEST OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY,
AND PROJECTIVE TEST
1890 James Cattell develops a "mental test" to assess
college students . Test includes measures of strength,
resistance to pain, and reaction time.
1905 Binet-Simon scale of mental development used
to classify mentally retarded children in France.
1916 Terman develops Stanford - Binet test and
develops the idea of Intelligence Quotient
1941-1960 vocational interest
measures developed
1920 - 1940 factor analysis,
projective tests, and
personality inventories first
appear.
1961-1980 item response
theory and neuropsychological
testing developed
1980 - present : Wide spread
adaptation of computerized
testing. "Smart" Tests which
can give each individual
different test items develop
The Projective Hypothesis
• The projective hypothesis (Lawrence Frank,
1939):
When people try to understand vague or
ambiguous unstructured stimuli, the
interpretation
they produce reflects their needs, feelings,
experience, prior
conditioning, thought processes
– Shakespeare, Hamlet, II.ii: "Nothing is either
good or bad, but
thinking makes it so."
The Problem
• The difficulty is answering: Which particular '
needs, feelings,
experience, prior conditioning, thought processes'
are reflected?
– projective tests can (by their own claim) draw
equally upon the
imagined and real, the conscious and unconscious,
the recent and
old, the important and the trivial, the revealing and
the obvious
– Much room for interpretation is left given to the
tester, making test
validation almost impossible
• These tests flourished more in the psychoanalytical
era, 1940-1960
History
• The earliest use of inkblots as projective
surfaces was J.Kerner's (1857)
– He was the first to claim that some people make
idiosyncratic or revealing interpretations
• In 1896, Alfred Binet suggested that inkblots
might be
used to assess personality (not psychopathology)
– Some work was done on this suggestion
– the first response set was published by G. M.
Whipple
(1910)
History
• Herman Rorschach, a Swiss
psychiatrist, was the first to suggest
(1911) the use of inkblot responses as a
diagnostic instrument
– In 1921 he published his book on
the test, Psychodiagnostik (and
soon thereafter died, age 38)
History
• Rorschach's test was not well-received, attracting little
notice
– David Levy brought it to the States
– His student, Samuel Beck, popularized its use here, writing
severalpapers and books on it starting with Configurational
Tendencies in
Rorschach Responses (1933)
• Several other early users also published work on the
Rorschach
– several offered their own system of administration, scoring, and
interpretation, leading to later problems in standardization
The Rorschach Inkblot Test
• The Rorschach Inkblot Test is the most commonly
used
projective test
– In a 1971 survey of test usage, it was used in 91%
of251 clinical settings survey
– It is one of the most widely used tests that exists
– It is widely cited in research
Psychometric Properties of the Rorschach
• Obviously, it is almost impossible to measure any of the
usualproperties in the usual way
– Validity and reliability are both rendered meaningless by the
openendedmultiplicity of possibility that is allowed and by the
lack of universally-accepted standardized instructions,
administrationprotocol, and scoring procedure (but see Exner,
1974)
• one approach: blind diagnosis made from a protocol alone
– In one study, 85% of protocols were matched to case
descriptions, in batches of 5
– reliability studies that have been done find r-values varying
from
0.1 to 0.9
• One was done on cases after electroshock, because it "wipes
out memory for the first test but does not change personality"
– Protocols were reported to be very similar
Other common projective tests
• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): 30 grayscale
pictures + one blank for elicitation of stories
– Not all are (though all may be) seen by everyone:
some
are suggested for men, some for women, some for
youth, some for elderly
• Most subjects see 10-12 cards, over two sessions
– Based on Murray's (1938) theory of needs (sex,
affiliation, dominance, achievement etc.)
• Thema = Interaction between needs and
environmental determinants
• Standardization of administration and scoring is
minimal
• Many variations on this 'story-telling' test exist
August 14, 1919 -December 15, 2005
National Scientist (1988)
Other common projective tests
• House-Tree-Person Test (Buck, 1948) & Draw-A-Person
(Machover, 1949):
Subject is asked to draw
– Scoring is on absolute size, relative size of elements,
omissions
"If there is a tendency to over-interpret projective test data
without sufficient
empirical grounds, then projective drawing tests are among
the worst
offenders."
Kaplan & Saccuzo, Psychological Testing 1993
HAND TEST
Identifies aggressive
tendencies likely to be
expressed in overt
behavior
The problem with drawing tests
- Among the plausible but empirically untrue
relations that have been claimed:
- Large size = Emotional expansiveness or acting
out
- Small size = emotional constriction;
withdrawal, or timidity
- Erasures around male buttocks; long eyelashes
on males = homoeroticism
- Overworked lines = tension, aggression
- Distorted or omitted features = Conflicts
related to that feature
- Large or elaborate eyes = Paranoia
Chapman & ChapmanTest Results Are What You Think They Are
• People tend to over-estimate the frequency of
correlations they believe
in (i.e. of associations) -or, equivalently, people
tend to confuse
correlation with semantic association
– This confusion is very resistant to change
– It remains even when the actual correlation is negative, or when
there are cash rewards for accurate estimations of correlation
"senses are fallible…clinical judgments
The two-way projection problem
"Objectivity in human relationships is impossible.
Therapists affect thebehaviour and feelings of patients,
and patients affect therapists. When achart notes that a
patient is 'hostile', it should also note, in the interests
ofbalance, that the therapist is 'paranoid'. If a therapist
calls a patient'defensive', chances are that the patient
would call the therapist 'aggressive'.Both should be
noted in a chart, if either is, since both are
equallyprobable. “
Shelagh Lynne Supeene
As For The Sky, Falling
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSESSMENT
http://www.brainsource.com/nptests.htm
The primary activity of neuropsychologists is
assessment of brain functioning through structured
and systematic behavioral observation.
Neuropsychological tests are designed to examine a
variety of cognitive abilities, including speed of
information processing, attention, memory, language,
and executive functions, which are necessary for goaldirected behavior
By testing a range of cognitive abilities and
examining patterns of performance in different
cognitive areas, neuropsychologists can make
inferences about underlying brain function.
Neuropsychological testing is an important
component of the assessment and treatment of
traumatic brain injury, dementia , neurological
conditions, and psychiatric disorders.
Neuropsychological testing is also an important
tool for examining the effects of toxic substances
and medical conditions on brain functioning.
As early as the seventeenth century, scientists theorized about associations
between regions of the brain and specific functions.
The French philosopher, Descartes, believed the human soul could be
localized to a specific brain structure, the pineal gland.
In the eighteenth century, Franz Gall advocated the theory that specific
mental qualities such as spirituality or aggression were governed by discrete
parts of the brain.
n contrast, Pierre Flourens contended that the brain was an integrated
system that governed cognitive functioning in a holistic manner.
Later discoveries indicated that brain function is both localized and
integrated. Paul Broca and Karl Wernicke furthered understanding of
localization and integration of function when they reported the loss of
language abilities in patients with lesions to two regions in the left
hemisphere of the brain
The modern field of neuropsychology
emerged in the twentieth century,
combining theories based on anatomical
observations of neurology with the
techniques of psychology, including
objective observation of behavior and the
use of statistical analysis to differentiate
functional abilities and define
impairment.
The famous Soviet
neuropsychologist Alexander
Luria played a major role in
defining neuropsychology as
it is practiced today. Luria
formulated two principle
goals of neuropsychology: to
localize brain lesions and
analyze psychological
activities arising from brain
function through behavioral
observation.
American neuropsychologist
Ralph Reitan emphasized the
importance of using standardized
psychometric tests to guide
systematic observations of brainbehavior relationships.
Muriel Deutsch Lezak is an American
neuropsychologist best known for her book
Neuropsychological Assessment, widely accepted as
the standard in the field.
Her work has centred on research into, assessment
and rehabilitation of brain injury
Dr. Lezak is Emeritus Professor of Neurology at the
Oregon Health and Science University School of
Medicine.
In 1996 she received the Distinguished
Neuropsychologist Award from the US-based
National Academy of Neuropsychology
Luria-Nebraska Battery
The Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological
Battery, also known as LNNB or LuriaNebraska Battery, is a standardized test
battery used in the screening and
evaluation of neuropsychologically
impaired individuals.
The LNNB is based on the work of A. R. Luria, a Russian
neuropsychologist who performed pioneering theoretical
and clinical work with regard to brain function.
Luria believed in a primarily qualitative approach to
assessment and was opposed to standardization. He did
not believe that neuropsychological functioning could be
measured quantitatively. Thus, although his name is part
of the test itself, his contribution to the LNNB is entirely
theoretical.
Also, the LNNB is based, in part, on Luria's
Neuropsychological Investigation, a measure developed
by Christensen in 1975. This test included items asked
by Luria in his clinical interviews, some of which are used
in the LNNB.
The battery, written in 1981 by Charles Golden, is
appropriate for people aged 13 and older and takes
between 90 and 150 minutes to complete.
It consists of 269 items in the following 11 clinical
scales:
reading
writing
arithmetic
visual
memory
expressive language
receptive language
motor function
Rhythm
The Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test
Battery is a fixed set of eight tests used to evaluate
brain and nervous system functioning in individuals
aged 15 years and older.
Children's versions are the Halstead
Neuropsychological Test Battery for Older Children
(ages nine to 14) and the Reitan Indiana
Neuropsychological Test Battery (ages five to eight).
The purpose of this battery is to provide the
clinician with a database for inferring the nature,
location, and extent of the structural changes in
the brain that may underlie and explain the
pattern of intact and impaired functions derived
from the measures and qualitative information
yielded by the battery.
The present battery consists of 10 tests which
have been shown empirically to best
discriminate between normals and patients with
documented cortical damage. The authors offer
convincing data favoring clearer brain damage
localization with the HRNB for acute lesions
rather than more chronic neuropathology.
The CANTAB tests are simple:
computerised, non-linguistic, and
culturally blind. They can be
administered by a trained
assistant. Importantly,
interpretation of a patient’s
condition can be easily understood
by a clinician.