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

Patients were clearly differentiated from non-patients.
In addition, the differences reported from the findings of the DAPA to what is regarded
as common knowledge in the literature were maintained:
There was no greater use of black in depressives compared with other groups.
Depressive paintings were not more negative than those of other groups.
There was no consistent impoverishment in the pictures of depressives or
schizophrenics compared with other groups (although pictures by patients
generally covered slightly but significantly less picture area than those of controls
in study 2, and schizophrenics used less colour).
Generally then, the conclusions of Study 1 are supported by study 2. The effect
of content seemed to be greater on the controls, which was against expectations, and
better grouping seemed to affect the scores of substance abusers and schizophrenics
most.
This measure has the facility to clearly distinguish psychiatric patients from
controls and also different diagnostic groups from combinations of variables (see results
section; identification of groups by characteristic). Patients and controls were clearly
differentiated by most colour ratings and all structural ratings. The findings from study
2 are consistent with results from study 1. In addition, preliminary finding from study
1 of inconsistencies in commonly believed characteristics of pictures by patient groups
were supported.
In Study 2, 6 from 12 variables, which appeared frequently enough to measure,
were identified as discriminating groups at very high levels of significance and 4 variables
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