Psychological Test, Levy Movement Blots

Description:

The psychiatrist David M. Levy (1892-1977) and the psychologist Joseph Zubin (1900-1990), both of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, advocated using this set of drawings to study human perception of movement. Levy had introduced the Rorschach ink blot test into the United States and designed these blots as a supplement. They were published in a limited edition by The Psychological Corporation of New York in 1948; this is an example. Levy saw the blots as a way of ranking how much clinical subjects imagined images to represent movements of people and encouraged them to devise stories about them. Zubin saw the blots as useful tools of experiment and requested information about plans to collect data using them.

The materials include seven cards with black and white images on them. The images were based on finger paintings folded in half to produce mirror images. The cards are marked on the back with Roman numerals. The first is I and X; the second II; the third III; the fourth IV; the fifth V; the sixth VI, VII, and VIII (with the marks in different corners); and the seventh IX. The eighth sheet is a mimeographed “Preliminary Manual for Experimental Work” by Levy and Zubin. The ninth sheet is a mimeographed set of suggestions by Levy entitled “Clinical Use of the Levy Movement Blots.” Finally, there is an eighteen-page exert from a dissertation by Ralph M. Rust entitled “Levy Movement Blots.”

References:

“Dr. David M. Levy, 84, A Psychiatrist, Dies,” New York Times, March 4, 1977, p. 33.

“Dr. Joseph Zubin, 90, Research Psychologist,” New York Times, December 17, 1990, p. 33.