What is a determinant?
Helge Malmgren
22d IRS conference, Paris 20 July 2017
Overview of the lecture
A common conception of a determinant is: a physical property of the blot that determines the response
The well-known paradox: Movement is not a physical property of the blot or its parts, so how could movement be a determinant?
First solution: M responses are actually a special kind of F responses, with form (shape) being a physical property of the blot (part) but with the movement somehow added by the subject. A fair view, but:
If the movement, but not the form, is added by the subject, why say that movement, like form, is a determinant (and not, e.g., a content)?
Second solution: defining all determinants in terms of those perceived properties of the blot that determine the response.
Objection! The percept is the response! Does it determine itself???
Counter-objection: The percept is not the response. The response is a verbalisation of one late part of the perceptual process: categorization This solution is equally needed for the determinants colour and form, Since colour is not a physical property of the blots, and
Since oriented form (e.g. ”U-shape”) is not a physical property either.
Objection: Is there no role left to play for the real properties of the blot?
The ”experience error” in psychology: lessons from the Gestaltists
Determinants as physical properties of the blots
Hermann Rorschach does not use the term
”determinant”, but: ”Most (by far) interpretations by healthy people are determined solely by the shape of the blots”, and ”The colour responses [are those for which] not only the form of the blots, but also their colours, or the colours alone, have had a determining role”.
For Exner (1993), the determinants are ”the blot
features that have contributed to the formation of the concept” or ”the numerous ways in which the stimulus characteristics of the blots can be used to create
responses”.
Bohm (1972) essentially agrees with Exner, e.g.:
”Since some of the Rorschach-plates show chromatic colours, a response can also be determined by the colour, and this either along with form or instead of it.”
These quotes all seem to imply that the determinants have to be real, i.e. physical, properties of the blots.
The equation real = physical is surely questionable both as a philosophical thesis and as an interpretation of the quotes, but let us accept it for the time being.
Movement is not a physical property of the blot
Bohm handles this annoying fact by arguing that movement responses have two distinct components. They are ”form responses, that have come into being with the help of kinaesthetic engrams”.
Here Bohm seems to come close to Rorschach’s view (but see next page) Exner (1993) also holds a two-
component theory, and states about the second component that: ” ...the formation of a movement answer must include features that are mentally
created by the subject and attributed to the stimulus field.”
But the biq question remains: Why should these ”engrams”, or ”mentally created features”, make M into a
determinant, when F becomes a determinant through form’s being a physical blot feature?
Determinants are perceived properties of the blot
Note Rorschach’s wording (italics in original, but boldface added): ”The movement responses are those interpretations that were determined
through the form perception plus kinaesthetic influences.”
Rorschach’s definition of M puts form and movement on an equal footing, since they are both ”mental creations” using Exner’s terms.
There are no corresponding formulations in the Psychodiagnostik for form (without movement) or colour, but the quote shows that Rorschach did not always think of the determinants as being physical properties of the blots.
But how can a mental creation determine the response? Is not the response = the mental creations prompted by the sight of the card?
Before answering this challenge, let us have a close look at the Colour and Form determinants!
Colour is not a physical property of the cards
This is an old physiological and philosophical truth.
Colour is, if not in the mind of the beholder then at least dependent on the beholder. It results from a complex interaction between physical stimuli and a brain that is capable of forming colour perceptions.
The same perceived colour can be produced by a multitude of different physical stimuli. For example, old-fashioned (cathode ray, RGB) TV and computer screens produce perceptions of yellow using an additive mixture of ”red” and ”green” light.
Different people, and the same people under
different conditions, perceive different colours when looking at the same card. For example, if you take a lot of digitalis you may see the world in a yellow tint.
Should we not classify such a person’s response
”urine” on the ”white space” of card II as a quite adequate chromatic colour response?
Even if we do not, we must be aware that the
”normal” perception of that area as being white is not a picture-like representation of any physical properties of the blot. (Note on luminosities.)
Form (shape) is not a physical property of the cards
This assertion may be more difficult to swallow than the corresponding one about colour, but:
Form, as relevant for Rorschach F responses, is
oriented form. E.g., the ”U shape” often perceived on Card VII, often resulting in a ”Bowl” response.
The physical universe knows no orientation. Up and down are subject dependent. But without up and down you would (normally) not see a bowl on VII.
For further evidence that the shapes you see in a picture are not physical shapes, cf my last slide.
The case is maybe even more obvious for the (rare) determinant Number. You may e.g. see the lower left part of Card X as ”Mom, dad and me” because it
contains three objects, but physically speaking there is no determinate number of objects there. (This fact has nothing to do with quantum indeterminacy.)
Grouping the perceptual field into a number of distinct objects is a very early part of the perceptual process.
At the same time, the objects are given their shapes.
What is won through the new definition of ”determinant”?
First of all, the paradox surrounding M responses is dissolved. (Of course, some important questions about them remain, cf. the ”identification” issue.) Second, it makes it possible to score the Rorschachs of subjects with
”deviant” colour vision – and they are very many! – without classifying their responses as ”invalid”. (Of course, we will then need new norms.)
As a special case of the last point, it offers a new perspective on colour projection, i.e. when chromatic colours are seen on ”objectively” greyscale plates. If the ”projected” colour is really perceived, and not only imagined, the answer should be classified as a colour response.
More generally, it explains why the subject can often tell us which the
determinants were. The subject cannot (if she is not a physicist) know the physical properties of the blot, but she can know how she perceived it.
The definition accords with Gestalt principles of visual perception. These were not known by Rorschach, who got his associationist theory from Bleuler, but everything that he says can be reformulated in Gestalt terms.
Note that Gestalt theory is not only, or not mainly, about the perception of wholes. It concerns the nature of all perceptual processes, even those resulting in the perception of a minute detail (or two). (Try to see a single dot without seeing it as located in an infinite spatial field.)
Is there no role left for the physical properties of the blot?
Yes, there is one. The physical properties of the card do interact with those of the subject’s brain to produce a percept, a percept that includes the determinants For example, global features of the physical blot are more relevant than local ones for producing M
percepts, and in a sense determine them. But the determinants of the M responses are perceived form and perceived movement.
It might also be thought that the assessment of form level, and similar assessments of adequacy, requires a reference to the blot’s physical features.
But form level is not the physical similarity between the blot and the object mentioned in the response. It is the similarity between the perceived blot (part) and the subject’s perceptions of the mentioned object.
This statement might seem shocking. But it solves another vexed problem: that of the popular F+. Card I is not at all physically similar to real bats, though the perceived card I is often similar to perceived real bats.
Hence, the popular F+’s are not in themselves matters of statistics, although statistics may be useful for
finding them.
The experience error (Köhler 1935)
Most psychologists have heard about the ”stimulus error”. It is the false attribution of known stimulus properties to the content of one’s perception.
The experience error is instead the false attribution of perceived properties to the physical world.
According to a recent review by J. Pomerantz (WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:509–517), the experience error is very common in experimental psychology.
Consider, e.g. the statement ”The stimuli were four letters…”
Like number, letters are in (or at least dependent on) the mind of the beholder. How many physical objects are there here? And are there any physical letters at all?
And what about the shape of the object seen in a puzzle picture? Is it a physical property of the picture? (Cf the discussion of the F determinant.)
The paper by Pomerantz should be obligatory reading for all Rorschach workers.
I only (!) disagree on whether perceived properties (like colour) are ”in the mind” or ”in the world”. In my view, the real is not the same as the physical. So grass is green.
Thank you for your attention (if it was not only in my mind)!
