Word: blots
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...other blot is apt to frighten subjects who are unhappy or unstable, but "normal" people merely call it a bearskin rug or an animal's skin. Schizoid personalities sometimes see a man's face in the dark shadows, but sexually frustrated women see a gorilla or some other strong masculine figure, chasing them...
Swiss Psychiatrist Hermann Rohrschach started something when he began making blot-pictures, by folding a piece of paper on a blob of ink. He showed the "pictures" to patients in a sanitarium and asked them what they saw. He tried hundreds of blot-pictures, finally selected ten which seemed to bring out the clearest responses. Today, after 20 years, psychologists all over the world have adopted his blots, use the Rohrschach Test not only to ferret out neuroses but also for vocational testing...
People who make quick, obvious answers and pass on to the next card are apt to be "conformist" types, anxious to be popular and avoid trouble. Those who see each blot as several different pictures are likely to have active and vivid emotions, while those who see shapes only in small details are often repressed...
...each of the ten blots there are some more or less standard answers. In the blot above (see cut) the most usual picture is two waiters bowing to each other, but alcoholics may see two drunks leaning over a table, while happy people call them dancers...
Banjo Boy Sirs: In TIME, Oct. 27, your article "Heroes" [about the theory that Abraham Lincoln was John Calhoun's illegitimate son] is a blot on your journalistic record that will be and should be hard to overcome...