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Perceptual Sensitivity and Defense in Amputee Children
Author(s) -
CENTERS LOUISE,
CENTERS RICHARD
Publication year - 1963
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1963.tb00391.x
Subject(s) - perception , psychology , significant difference , vigilance (psychology) , test (biology) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , audiology , medicine , mathematics , statistics , neuroscience , paleontology , biology
In order to test the hypothesis that amputee children will exhibit more conflict and defensiveness in the form of delayed recognition of an amputee figure which resembles their own body image than will non‐amputee children, a tachistoscopic speed‐of‐recognition test was given to two groups of children. Amputee children manifested a significantly longer reaction time in recognizing any difference between two figures presented tachistoscopically, one of which had an arm missing. When they did recognize a difference, however, they more readily attributed it to a difference in the arms of the figures than did the non‐amputee children. The latter more frequently accounted for the difference in the figures by referring to other parts of the bodies or proposing that the figures were posed differently. The findings are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis of greater defensiveness of the amputee child, with a difference in perceptual sensitivity or vigilance also being involved.