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

Effect of the distribution of elements over the picture plane
It is possible that a lot of empty space could swamp a small amount of information
generated by the DAPA. Presently it is difficult to distinguish a consistent small amount
of media from a concentrated area in one part of the picture from individual scales,
although it can be deduced from a combination of related scales.
Further development of the DAPA should consider the issue of distribution of
a small amount of material over the picture. The averaging process between all 20
sections of the grid works for the colour and form measures of presence/absence, but
intensity, line, space and emotional tone would have a nil rating for empty space,
confusing measures of little with none as it has for line. I have tried to avoid this problem
by scoring empty squares on the emotional tone and intensity scale as neutral, but this
has probably biased the scoring range towards neutral and may even obscure strong
contrasts. If the mean of line, emotional tone and intensity were taken between occupied
squares by treating the empty squares as missing data, it would obscure how much of the
picture was taken up. A better answer would be to reduce the subvariables (low, neutral,
high) to 2 values (low and high) effectively eliminating neutral. Later development will
enable different parts of the picture to be considered separately. A better way would
probably record missing values and average between as many grid sections filled. It
would also be useful to correlate records of position of the Dominant Form so that
persistent compositional devices could be measured as products of Space/Form.
Rating problems.
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