The Effects of Coding the Location of Individual Objects in a Normative Sample of Rorschach Data

Abstract

The locations people use when constructing responses to the Rorschach task demonstrate their style of perceiving the environment. Current systems code location use into three mutually exclusive categories: use of the whole inkblot (W), common detail areas (D), and rare detail areas (Dd). The location of objects within multiobject W responses typically are never classified and those within D areas might or might not be, which could lead to a biased understanding of the visual structure embedded in the task. To better understand this structure, we systematically coded the location of all individual response objects in 145 normative protocols, finding some notable differences relative to conventional coding guidelines. Across cards, from 8% to 71% (M = 40.2%) of W responses had multiple subcomponent objects that typically are never tallied, and multiple unnumbered location areas are used more often than many specific numbered areas. To assess generalizability, we documented correspondence with location frequencies in 4,786 protocols gathered using Rorschach Performance Assessment System guidelines. The results contribute to an improved understanding of the visual structure built into the inkblot stimuli and a method for quantifying exhaustiveness, commonness, and atypicalness as independent dimensions. We discuss implications for coding and interpreting inkblot location use.

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted in part with data provided by R-PAS co-authors and others credentialed as proficient in R-PAS coding and administration. We thank Susan Berenzweig, Gabriela Dima, Robert Erard, Fabiana Freitas, Joanna Fries, Luciano Giromini, James Gormally, Mauro Di Lorenzo, and Donald Viglione for the additional data they contributed. We also thank the researchers who donated CS data back in 2008 or before, including Vera Campo, Stamatia Daroglou, Nicolae Dumitrascu, John Exner, Mel Hamel, Len Handler, Kim Hansen, Jan Ivanouw, Adriana Lis, Helena Lunazzi, Carl-Erik Mattlar, Christian Mormont, Noriko Nakamura, Kevin Pertchik, Silvia Salcuni, Thomas Shaffer, Serge Sultan, Mary Ann Valentino, and Katherine Van Patten.

Notes

1 Dd34 is the lightly shaded central blue area within D6. We scored it more often in the norms when people identified it as a distinct object within the D6 area (e.g., as two people holding something between them). However, readers should consider this a very tentative finding. As Table 6 shows, this is one of the smallest absolute changes in the table. The chi-square calculation was problematic because the expected frequency in the norms was just 0.34, which is well below the recommendation to have expected values of at least 5.0 in each cell. Nonetheless, in the norms, people used this area three times; in the R-PAS data set, people used it seven times. Given the very different sample sizes involved, these ns produced very different observed relative frequencies of 0.6356% and 0.0525%, which leads to the statistical difference with a very small effect size, r = .0394.