Premium
CONTROL, DEFENCE AND CENTRATION EFFECT: A STUDY OF SCANNING BEHAVIOUR *
Author(s) -
GARDNER RILEY W.,
LONG ROBERT I.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1962.tb00819.x
Subject(s) - centration , psychology , developmental psychology , cognition , rorschach test , cognitive psychology , sample size determination , correlation , statistics , audiology , mathematics , medicine , neuroscience , geometry
Studies of individual consistencies in cognitive behaviours by Gardner and others led to postulation of a cognitive control principle called extensiveness of scanning that could in part determine the apparent size of standard stimuli in a relatively difficult size estimation test. In the present study, electro‐oculography was employed to obtain precise measures of the scanning strategies 60 subjects employed in four size estimation tests. In addition to providing evidence of consistent individual scanning syndromes, the study showed that extensiveness of scanning is a determinant of apparent size in the relatively difficult size estimation test in question. The study also confirmed Piaget's hypothesis (see Piaget, 1961) that the apparent size of a stimulus is a function of the duration of a single centration upon it. Subjects were shown to be consistently different from each other in these centration effects, independent of the significant negative correlation of the effect with age. These individual differences were significantly associated with the apparent size of standard stimuli in a relatively simple size estimation test. A predicted relationship between extensiveness of scanning and the number of conceptually distant responses produced in a free association test was not confirmed. Predicted relationships were confirmed, however, between extensiveness of scanning and the strength of the defence mechanisms of isolation and projection and the degree of generalized delay, judged on the basis of Rorschach test protocols. Predictions of specific aspects of response to the Rorschach inkblots were also confirmed.