How does the Rorschach inkblot test work? - Damion Searls

翻译人员: Riley WANG 校对人员: Cissy Yun

Take a look at this image.

看看这张图，

What might this be?

它画的是什么？

A frightening monster?

是一个可怕的怪物吗？

Two friendly bears?

还是两只愉快的熊？

Or something else entirely?

或是其他完全不同的东西？

For nearly a century,

在近一个世纪里，

ten inkblots like these have been used

人们使用十张这样的墨迹图

as what seems like an almost mystical personality test.

进行近乎神秘的人格测试。

Long kept confidential for psychologists and their patients,

心理学家及其病患 长期将其作为机密，

the mysterious images were said to draw out the workings of a person’s mind.

据说它们能够描绘出 一个人的大脑是如何工作的。

But what can inkblots really tell us,

但是墨迹图真正能够告诉我们什么？

and how does this test work?

它又是如何工作的？

Invented in the early 20th century by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach,

墨迹图由瑞士心理医生 赫曼·罗夏于20世纪初发明。

the Rorschach Test is actually less about the specific things we see,

罗夏测试实际上 并不关注我们看到了什么，

and more about our general approach to perception.

而是关注我们感知事物的方式。

As an amateur artist

作为一名艺术业余爱好者，

Hermann was fascinated by how visual perception varies from person to person.

赫曼因人与人之间 视觉感知的巨大差异而着迷。

He carried this interest to medical school,

他将这项兴趣带到了医学院，

where he learned all our senses are deeply connected.

在此，他了解到所有的人类感官 都有很深的内在联系。

He studied how our process of perception doesn’t just register sensory inputs,

他发现我们的感知过程 不只是获得感官输入，

but transforms them.

而是将其进行转化。

And when he started working at a mental hospital in eastern Switzerland,

在瑞士东部的一家心理诊所工作时，

he began designing a series of puzzling images

他开始设计一系列令人困惑的图像，

to gain new insight into this enigmatic process.

以此深入了解谜一样的感知过程。

Using his inkblot paintings,

通过使用墨迹图，

Rorschach began quizzing hundreds of healthy subjects

罗夏向数百位 健康人和心理疾病患者

and psychiatric patients with the same question:

提出同样的问题：

what might this be?

这图片中画的可能是什么？

However, it wasn’t what the test subjects saw that was most important to Rorschach,

但是，被测试者看到什么 并不是最重要的，

but rather, how they approached the task.

他们如何完成这项任务 才是罗夏最关注的。

Which parts of the image did they focus on or ignore?

他们是否关注或是忽略 图片中的某个部分？

Did they see the image moving?

他们是否看到图像在动？

Did the color on some inkblots help them give better answers,

墨迹图的颜色是否能帮助他们回答？

or distract and overwhelm them?

还是说这些颜色会令他们分心 或产生巨大情绪反应？

He developed a system to code people’s responses,

他开发了一个系统 来解读人们的回答，

reducing the wide range of interpretations to a few manageable numbers.

将大量的解读 缩小到一个可控的数字。

Now he had empirical measures to quantify all kinds of test takers:

这样他用实证方法 量化了被测试者的全部类型：

the creative and imaginative,

富有创造力和想象力的人，

the detail-oriented, the big-picture perceivers,

关注细节或是关注宏观的人，

and flexible participants able to adapt their approach.

随机应变调整方法的人。

Some people would get stuck,

某些人看图时可能会卡住，

offering the same answer for multiple blots.

面对不同的墨迹图时 会提供相同的回答。

Others gave unusual and delightful descriptions.

其他人可能给出 不同寻常或是有意思的描述。

Responses were as varied as the inkblots,

人们的反应依墨迹图的不同而不同，

which offered different kinds of perceptual problems–

这表现出不同种类的感知问题——

some easier to interpret than others.

其中的某些问题比其他问题 更容易解释，

But analyzing the test-taker’s overall approach

但是通过分析 实验对象的大体的感知方式

yielded real insights into their psychology.

能够帮助深入了解其心理。

And as Rorschach tested more and more people,

随着参与罗夏测试的人数 不断扩大，

patterns began to pile up.

一些模式也开始形成。

Healthy subjects with the same personalities

对于健康的且拥有 相同个性的被测试者来说

often took remarkably similar approaches.

他们给出的答案 通常也惊人地相似。

Patients suffering from the same mental illnesses

而患有相同心理疾病的病人

also performed similarly,

通常也会有相似的表现，

making the test a reliable diagnostic tool.

这使得罗夏测试 成为可靠的诊断工具。

It could even diagnose some conditions

它甚至可以诊断出

difficult to pinpoint with other available methods.

其他方法难以发现的病症。

In 1921,

在1921年，

Rorschach published his coding system alongside the ten blots he felt

罗夏发表了他的编码系统 以及十张墨迹图，

gave the most nuanced picture of people’s perceptual approach.

他认为这十张墨迹图最能 展现感知过程的细微之处。

Over the next several decades,

在接下来的数十年中，

the test became wildly popular in countries around the world.

这项测试在世界上各个国家广泛流行，

By the 1960s,

截止到1960年代，

it had been officially administered millions of times in the U.S. alone.

仅在美国， 它就被正式使用了上百万次。

Unfortunately, less than a year after publishing the test,

不幸的是， 在发表测试一年之后，

Hermann Rorschach had died suddenly.

赫曼·罗夏突然离世。

Without its inventor to keep it on track,

他曾运用科学方法 收集大量数据支持墨迹测试，

the test he had methodically gathered so much data to support

现在没有了他正确的思路，

began to be used in all sorts of speculative ways.

这项测试开始 以各类试探性的方式使用。

Researchers gave the test to Nazi war criminals,

研究者给纳粹战犯做测试，

hoping to unlock the psychological roots of mass murder.

希望能揭开大规模屠杀的心理根源。

Anthropologists showed the images to remote communities

人类学家将图像展示给 偏远地区生活的人们，

as a sort of universal personality test.

用来进行共性人格的测试。

Employers made prejudiced hiring decisions based on reductive decoding charts.

公司雇主依据简化的解读 做出带有偏见的用人决定。

As the test left clinics and entered popular culture

随着这项测试脱离医院 并进入流行文化，

its reputation among medical professionals plummeted,

它的名声在医学专家眼中 直线下跌，

and the blots began to fall out of clinical use.

墨迹图开始不再用于临床诊断。

Today, the test is still controversial,

如今，这项测试仍然具有争议性，

and many people assume it has been disproven.

许多人认为它已经被证伪。

But a massive 2013 review of all the existing Rorschach research

但2013年一项大规模的研究 回顾了所有现存的罗夏研究，

showed that when administered properly the test yields valid results,

表明恰当进行测试能够产生有效的结果，

which can help diagnose mental illness

它能够帮助诊断心理疾病，

or round out a patient’s psychological profile.

或是描绘病人的心理特征图。

It’s hardly a stand-alone key to the human mind–

它并非开启人类大脑的唯一钥匙，

no test is.

没有任何测试能够这样。

But its visual approach and lack of any single right answer

但是这种利用视觉、 不给出单一正确答案的方法

continue to help psychologists paint a more nuanced picture

继续帮助心理学家更细致地描绘

of how people see the world.

人们如何看待世界的图像，

Bringing us one step closer

这使我们更进一步，

to understanding the patterns behind our perceptions.

了解我们感知背后的模式。