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

for estimating cover. Line was measured in many ways and inconsistently - many studies
had to be excluded because of reliability issues and the main point of the line review was
that line was difficult to measure objectively without relation within the picture.
Because the other variables from the DAPA test are not included in the
discriminant analysis does not necessarily render those non-significant, especially for
inter-patient discrimination. The analysis worked slightly differently each time with each
partition of the data removing certain variables for others. There were medium effects on
colours and a different system of combining these might remove confounding correlations
and it would also be useful to use a bigger sample of controls. These other variables may
be important but the problems of multicollinearity must be addressed. This is a task for
more extensive statistics which would not be appropriate on this sample.
Weaknesses of the study
The study was not able to control for medication, or IQ/ability; measures were recorded
but casenotes were too inconsistent, so more independent measures could fine these
results. The size of the control group was too small for proper comparison with each
patient group and was not matched for age and sex, but these variables were statistically
controlled and did not invalidate the main findings. Because the staff could not be
assumed not to understand the purpose of the study, and as with any other such study,
could have produced deliberately different paintings than the patients, two control
measures were taken: most of the study was done on retrospective work - the staff and
patients had already produced paintings as part of the recreational programme of the
319