Auditory Perception and Personality Patterns of Blind Adults

Abstract

212 blind adults were administered the Sound Test, an auditory projective technique, to study their perceptual style and relate it to their functioning efficiency. The results indicated systematic significant differences between three employment criterion groups, employed in industry, in sheltered workshops and unemployed. The industry group demonstrated a higher ability to integrate, organize and differentiate the stimulus situations. The shop sample was stimulus bound, field dependent and rejected more stimulus situations. The unemployed group was significantly different from the industry and shop groups, exhibiting little or no effort to organize, integrate and differentiate. The results are discussed in terms of Witkin's principles of differentiation, field-dependency and field-independency. A cross validation study supports the results.