Perception of Hidden Figures by Neurotic and Schizophrenic Patients

Abstract

Weckowicz (1960), using pictures of common objects with superimposed lines, found that schizophrenics were less able to see the hidden figures than normal subjects and other patients. Unfortimately the task turned out to be too easy; most of the normal subjects and more than a third of the acute schizophrenics obtained the maximum possible score. Such a distribution of scores makes it difficult to carry out further analysis of the results. The aim of the present study was, using a more difficult task to obtain a better distribution, to confirm the lowered capacity of schizophrenics and to relate it to other variables. The task used was the ‘Gottschaldt Figures Test’, published by the University of California Institute of Personality Assessment and Research. This consists of the identification of two simple geometrical figures embedded in complex designs. The score (maximum = 20) is the number of figures correctly identified on two sheets, 2 minutes being allowed for each sheet. To ascertain how this task is ‘normally’ related to certain major personality variables, a group of neurotic patients was used, since they would not be expected to have any special disability on a task of this type.