The psychopathology of everyday art: a quantitative Study - World ...

include recognisable or identifiable objects/persons (but do not attribute meaning to the
image or compare it with an internal model). These objective categories can be
differentiated from subjective categories in that they do not require interpretation of the
image (fitting a meaning to the marks or images), do not require judgements of relations
between images or opinions on such personal judgements as aesthetic quality or
emotional associations. E.g. to note the presence of decoration, a subject must be
reconstructed from the marks on the paper and compared with what the rater thinks is
essential to structure: this is an opinion. On the other hand, phrasing can be misleading:
rating criteria demanding presence or absence of a symbol does not require an objective
but a subjective decision, because it requires the opinion of the rater on the intentions of
the artist. Many of the tests here had global elements for which operational definitions
cannot be considered reliable for a single rater.
Selection: To minimise confounding variables, the studies which were to be included in
the reliability assessment were those:
1. Which actually measured art variables from the pictures (4 studies of the benefits
of art therapy were excluded because the tests did not measure attributes of the
picture; they used self reports or behaviourial assessment. 3 other non-art
studies were excluded: Study 71, which used the TAT Make a Picture Story Test
protocol but assessed the verbal explanations of the patients; Study 62 and 15,
which used rigid copy accuracy measures.
2. Which used more than one rater if the rater was not trained for an established test
or if the test used mainly content variables.
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