Perceptual size constancy of known clinical groups.

Abstract

Perceptual constancy, long considered in the domain of experimental psychology, is now coming of importance in clinical-social psychological research. Many attempts have been made to find theoretical bases for the constancy phenomenon, but only recently have personality factors begun to take prominence in this theorizing. In 1938, Sheehan, quoting Izzet's findings that a lower constancy is more characteristic of schizothymes, stated, "While no great weight can be attached to the theory that personality may be one of the factors determining constancy, it is perhaps worth noting that Thouless has also reported (unreliably) lower ratios for a group of schizothymes" [7, p. 20]. More recently, in a study involving judgments of sizes by people who were evaluated as to personality characteristics, Holzman and Klein concluded, "Patterns of psychophysical response express stable perceptual attitudes and are predictive of personality tendencies" [4, p. 312]. Singer [8] found different size-constancy ratios for "thinking introverts and extroverts" under conditions of experimental frustration. Bruner suggests that there is a definite relationship between personality dynamics and perceptual mechanisms. With reference to the schizophrenic as viewed from psychoanalytic theory he asks, "Might not we predict for example that a withdrawal from object relations and an increasing concern for the self would lead the Veterans Administration Regional Office, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. s The authors are indebted to George Calden who, together with Richard Sanders, conceived the initial idea and who collaborated on some exploratory work at the University of Michigan in 194-8.

The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behavior.

“…Singer's standard stimuli were overestimated under three conditions: when meaningful as compared with meaningless symbols were drawn upon them, when the subjects were motivated to greater accuracy by being instructed to select the variable stimulus so that they could bet its size was equal to that of the standard rather than selecting one which merely looked the same, and when the subjects had been frustrated by fifteen minutes work on an insoluable conceptformation task with the experimenter feigning alarm and despondency at their performance. Again, Sanders and Pacht (1952) found that their neurotic and psychotic subjects made larger estimates of the sizes of standard stimuli than their normal subjects. Results of the kind Callaway and Thompson set out to explain are not limited to their own experiment, though their finding that more distant cues tend to appear smaller under stress was not borne out by Singer's work.…”

Perceptual size constancy in chronic schizophrenia.

“…However, as pointed out in a recent summary (Rabin & King, 1958), there is little agreement among the results of previous experiments. Sanders and Pacht (1952) found "overconstancy" amongaschizophrenic group as compared with normals, while Weckowicz (1957) reports the opposite relationship. Raush (1956) found no differences between nonparanoid schizophrenics, although his paranoid group did differ from normals.…”

“…The ability to judge correctly the sizes of objects despite variation in viewing distance, i.e., size constancy, represents an important biological achievement of living organisms and has been studied in relation to the underlying mechanisms as well as to psychopathology. In particular, the possibility that size constancy differs among schizophrenics as compared with normals has been of interest to a number of investigators and theorists (Lovinger, 1956;Maes, 1957;Raush, 1952Raush, , 1956Reynolds, 1954;Sanders & Pacht, 1952;Weckowicz, 1957). Bruner (1951) states the theoretical problem most succinctly when he suggests that a withdrawal from object relations and an increasing concern for the self might lead to a breakdown in perceptual constancy.…”

The influence of symbolic stimulus value on perceived size in chronic schizophrenia.

“…The results of studies comparing normals and schizophrenics with regard to this classical phenomenon of perception are somewhat contradictory (Rabin & King, 1958). Sanders and Pacht (1952) reported "overconstancy" in schizophrenia, while Weckowicz (1957) reported the opposite. Cooper (I960) recently reported a decrease in accuracy and an increase in variability on simple size comparison tasks.…”

“…First, there may be differences in the subject populations, especially the patient groups, and there is a possibility of different syndromes within the broad category of schizophrenia. For example, Sanders and Pacht (1952) used outpatients, while Cooper (1960) used a schizophrenic population which was predominantly composed of patients of less than 2 years' hospitalization. Neither of these groups is comparable to the population used by Leibowitz and Pishkin (1961) which had an average length of hospitalization of close to 9 years.…”