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Wikipedia Debates Rorschach Censorship
GigsVT writes "Editors on Wikipedia are engaged in an epic battle over a few piece of paper smeared with ink. The 10 inkblot images that form the classic Rorschach test have fallen into the public domain, and so including them on Wikipedia would seem to be a simple choice. However, some editors have cited the American Psychological Association's statement that exposure of the images to the public is an unethical act, since prior exposure to the images could render them ineffective as a psychological test. Is the censorship of material appropriate, when the public exposure to that material may render it useless?"
I thought they made those randomly. If there are only ten of them, that seems to indicate that there are a few certain "correct" answers, which kind of throws the whole test into doubt now, doesn't it?
the Rorshach ink blots. Oops, it seems I have exposed them to the public, I guess the whole debate is moot now.
Seriously though, there are a million associative tests, I didn't think anyone even used the original Rorschach any more except to discuss it in beginning psychology classes.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Exposer to to pseudo-science renders it useless??? Now if we can apply that to Intelligent design?
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I can hardly see how debunking what is in essence a subtle placebo as something that is unethical. In by that same stretch, debunking magic would be unethical. Pretty lame really. It's something almost 100 years old. For it to be phased out now due to there being far more accurate psychoanalysis is a good thing.
Everyone knows they're all pictures of boobs anyway.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
If they're in the public domain, then they're in the public domain, and that ends it. I'm sure the APA can come up with some new, copyrighted ink blot tests. Perhaps they could involve images of Tom Cruise and L. Ron Hubbard in various disturbing poses.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here are some examples of ink blots, and patient reaction.
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF233-Psychoanalyst.jpg
The wikipedia page says it made it to public domain in 1992. Why exactly is this news?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
At least some of them showed up in "Big Secrets" by William Poundstone over 20 years ago. (Great book IMHO, though the sequels go down in quality as he scrounges for more secrets.) He also discusses what types of things are 'bad' to see in them.
It seems that the APA is the latest group that needs to do some reading on why security through obscurity just doesn't work.
I went to the Wikipedia page and saw what appears to be ten pictures of vaginas. Is that why everyone is so worked up about this?
Where is my face!?!??!
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
The website cited for being the source of the image currently at the top of the Wikipedia page is here, with its English counterpart being right here.
It includes all 10 Rorschach images.
Kid-proof tablet..
... because if they aren't on wikipedia, then nobody will ever find them on the internet and the images will be safe forever!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I used to edit Wikipedia a lot, and during that time, I saw a lot of these debates. This is nothing new, just a heated debate over whether to include an image (in this case the Rorschach test images) based upon ethics and Wikipedia policy (which there is actually very little).
/. index, there have been many other and similar debates like it, many having much larger implications concerning censorship on Wikipedia by recommendation of a 3rd party organization.
Essentially what will happen (or has already happened, I didn't read the whole debate), is that the definition of "consensus" will be called into question, as that's what runs Wikipedia, and is what decides these debates. However, the Wikipedia policy of consensus is so vague and non-standardized that many debates like this end without consensus, and can even escalate into an edit war, followed by admins having to step in. (which is one of the reasons why I no longer edit it)
I really don't see why this specific debate made it on the
Wait until the optometrists discover that Wikipedia is using an uncensored Snellen eye chart. Pssst! The big letter at the top is an "E."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The earliest publication to the general lay public that I personally know of is their presentation on pages 118-127 of William Poundstone's book Big Secrets, Quill, 1983, ISBN 0-688-04830-7.
In other words, they were out there before the Web was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eye.
Anyone know of any earlier publications?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Back in college, my psyc prof spent some time going over those "personality" screenings and directly told us how to pass. He in effect, gave us the answer key (for those of us taking notes) on how to present ourselves via test results. His statements about how the scoring is done already invalidated the test. He also covered multi-colored ink blots and told us how to handle those too.
But despite what I know, every time I see an ink blot, I think "ink blot, symmetrical about [X,Y] axis." What's that make me? I don't see anything. Just ink on folded paper. I've stared at these things and my answer never changes. because you know, its still an ink blot.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
These blobs were specifically designed to include as many penisses, vaginas and boobs as possible.
It's not easy to make blobs which match their quantity of private parts.
Trust me on this.
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Psychologists used other means to diagnose people, then gave them the Rorschach test. They found correlations between certain diagnoses and certain types of answers or behaviors exhibited during the test. The Rorschach test is not a definitive test that will tell you unequivocally what specific mental issues you have. Like all psychological tests, it is just one tool among many that helps a trained expert make a diagnosis. For instance, if the Rorschach test says you are a psychopath, but you show a capacity for empathy and remorse, any trained psychologist will know that the test simply didn't work on you.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hey! Who put CowboyNeal's photo in there?
Have gnu, will travel.
The Wikipedia intelligentsia won't even carry spoiler alerts, because that could lead to "censorship", and is somehow "hard to define" (seems like the word "reveal" would be the main tip to me, in the same way as "like" or "as" denotes similes). But then again, they were able to censor the journalist kidnapping stuff, since the ends justify the means. So, who knows?
You were really really close...
1. Get a series of inkblots together
2. Gather and correlate data on how healthy people describe blots
3. Gather and correlate data on how people with known problems describe blots
4. Show inkblots to patients
5. See how their results line up with previous correlations
6.1 Verify validity of inkblots with strong correlation thus establishing the utility of the inkblots
6.2 Sell to to psychiatrists/psychologists as a diagnostic tool
7 profit
Or conversely
6.2 Doctor uses statistical results on real patient.
6.3 Results help to diagnose patient.
6.4 Payment from patient for services rendered leads to:
7. profit
Are we concerned that someone with a mental illness will see the blots online and then later will not be cured because this one diagnostic tool isn't useful? You'd run the same risk with anyone who's seen more than one psychiatrist in their life. Perhaps if the psychiatrist simply asks each patient "have you seen these before?". If a modern doctor considers these inkblots their only tool, perhaps they should retire.
It's a test... I think publishing it online would be the same as publishing any other test online. If it's still generally or widely used, then the ethical implications should be the same as, for example, publishing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator online (trademark issues aside).
The MBTI Foundation's website lists what they consider to be ethical use. But this is opinion, and others might say there are no real ethical issues because it's simply a list of questions people can ask themselves.
Agreed. I don't think it is Wikipedia's role to decide whether to protect people from themselves. Instead, I think they should focus on provided fair warning like a plot spoiler to interested readers. They should only seek to prevent accidental disclosure.
No. You simply have no perspective or any real understanding.
Academic and intellectual freedom are what has allowed you and
your forebears to make it out of childhood and to breeding age.
Without free inquiry and the open exchange of ideas, the progress
of the last half millenium would never have happened. You would
not be here to propose bad ideas.
Similar progress in the future is threatened by any selfish small
group of society that abuses high sounding phrases for their own
benefit. This isn't just about the practice of psychaitry. It's
about science and society in general.
If the Rorschact test can't stand the light of day then it's of no real value.
It's time to adapt. "smart people" would have seen this coming and made accomodations.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Largely so, in the original method.
Nowadays, generally you aren't measuring what the person sees(a dog vs tits), but the manner of their perception. Are they vague or specific, how closely it resembles the inkblot, or does the person give motives to whatever he sees(dog vs growling dog).
While nobody is exactly the same, our brain structure shares some commanality and the perception:disfunction pairings can be correlated within genetic and cultural groups(can't see a giraffe if you just walked out of the Amazon outback).
The human perceptions system is greatly affected by other brain functions, such as in schizophrenia where drawings may become wildly stylized, e.g. this series of cat paintings that start out normal and end up looking like fractals as the disease goes on. (Has anyone disproved this yet? Induced symptoms through TCMS seemed to validate it)
The downside is that it is still largely subjective. There have been some improvements(saying something looks like underwear doesn't make automatically make you a perv anymore), but as long as the scoring varies between testers(which it does) it is just as open to misinterpretation and manipulating as using autonomic responses to indicate veracity.
Similarly, any test that is broken by foreknowledge of the test is equally broken as a test that relies on the subject to be completely truthful.
.
TLDR: it's bullshit, but it can be useful bullshit, like simplified models of the atom.
Because the shrink are lazy bums; too lazy to even come up with new ink blobs.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
See quote in signature.
Seriously, even without having searched for the blots previously, you just can't grow up without seeing a few of them in movies and such. So, if the test requires secrecy to work, it has failed a long time ago.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
> Nobody else has any legitimate reason to access it unless they're being examined.
Could we have an example of an "illegitimate" reason?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Human being seem to always put their own short-term self-interest ahead of group self-interest, even when group self-interest is in the individual's longer term self-interest. There is no good reason to broadcast the Rohrschach test. Anybody who wants to do research can access it without any problem. Nobody else has any legitimate reason to access it unless they're being examined.
In most countries you can have your civil rights removed on the basis of psychological testing and diagnoses. It can affect the outcome of court cases, education and employment, gun rights, drivers licensing, even up to forcible detention and medication. Most of those do not even require a conviction against you. Psychologists and psychiatrists have no right to secret procedures. They have been handed too much power for that to be a viable option.
If they wish to have secret procedures, then it ought to be the law of the land that no diagnoses has any legal effect except it is confirmed by jury.
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I can't see the "Bat" one as anything except a bat since I've seen it in batman comic books; saw how he saw it as a bat.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This is a popular myth, that only governments can censor. The truth is, ANYONE can censor, given the power to control someone else's expression; the only difference is that the government is bound by the First Amendment.
Of course, that doesn't stop them - the First Amendment doesn't make exceptions for obscenity or incitement to panic (think "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater"), but those things have been interpreted by the courts as unprotected speech.
My favorite definition, from Dr. Laurence J. Peters: "A censor is someone who knows more than he thinks you should know."
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
GigsVT, can you post a picture of what you are talking about, please?
Open Standards Portal
Apparently they think the public is SO stupid that, the ones who are intent on dodging the test are uncapable of finding access to the test images even now.
there should be an elitism & down to earthness test for scientists to prevent such foolery of mind.
Read radical news here
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My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
As long as they're throwing hissy fits about Rorschach tests, they might as well yank the article on eye charts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snellen_chart
Here,
E
FP
TOZ
LPED
PECFD
EDFCZP
FELOPZD
DEFPOTEC
I humbly await the eye doctors of the world to DMCA me.
If you answer 'inkblot on paper' to all ten, are you obsessed with inkblots?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Personally I think that Rorschach should be censored, he was the least likable of the characters in the whole comic and when his resolution came at the end of the story I though it was well done. But by all means censor the foul mouthed weenie!
Why bother
That's as good an excuse as any to paste this here:
NNPI (No Nonsense Personality Inventory)
[Author unknown - see "The Best of the Journal of Irreproducible Results"]
1. At times I am afraid my toes will fall off.
2. As an infant, I had very few hobbies.
3. Some people look at me.
4. Spinach makes me feel alone.
5. Sometimes I think someone is trying to take over my stomach.
6. My teeth sometimes leave my body.
7. I think I would like the work of a hummingbird.
8. I have always been disturbed by the size of Lincoln's ears.
9. It makes me angry to have people bury me.
10. I believe I smell as good as most people.
11. Most people vomit out of spite.
12. Constantly losing my underwear doesn't bother me.
13. It is hard for me to find the right thing to say when I am in a room full of cockroaches.
14. I believe that halitosis is better than no breath at all.
15. Weeping brings tears to my eyes.
16. I believe in life after birth.
17. Some songs make me burp.
18. I never seem to finish whatever I
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Destroying the Rorschach test as it exists today might be seen as a public service ...
http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/IPfiles/Spring06/practitioner/rorschach.php
Just use a different test.
"You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down... "
However, some editors have cited the American Psychological Association's statement that exposure of the images to the public is an unethical act, since prior exposure to the images could render them ineffective as a psychological test. Is the censorship of material appropriate, when the public exposure to that material may render it useless?
It seems to me that this is a fight over superstitions; the strength of the Rorschach test is not that here we have a set of carefully constructed, magical devices such as mankind has never seen before. The basic idea, if I'm not mistaken, is to get the subject to look at them and talk about whatever thoughts are inspired by them. The precise shapes are not important, and you can use any other device in the same way, eg. Tarot cards.
This is incidentally the way Tarot cards make it possible to "see the future" - everybody can predict things, it is just a matter of remembering and thinking about all the facts; by looking at a number of Tarot cards and trying to relate the symbols to your circumstances, you force yourself to think out of the box, thus bringing more of the things you already know into your conscious awareness, which gives you a better basis from which to predict things. Nothing magical about it.
Might be a pain in the arse to the psychologists but surely this *helps* anyone who has seen them. If you're being asked to take one of these test (I have never been in that position) then it suggest that they believe there is a *possibility* you could be psychotic etc. Thus, in any sensible (even psychotic) mind, it's only good sense to make the test fail. I fail to believe that they could ever possibly be a rigourous diagnostic tool anyway and thus this allows the following:
"Now, we're going to be taking an inkblo..." ..."
"Horse, fridge, man driving up a hill,
"Eh?"
"Rorschach, yes?"
"Yes."
"I just invalidated the results of your test, didn't I?"
"Well, yes."
"Good... could we have something a little more rigourous and bit less 'Hollywood' please, if you're going to be seriously analysing me?"
And if the analyst *doesn't* abandon the test at that point? That's probably a good ground for misconduct because even their own representative groups *say* that the test is useless if you've seen the images before.
One of my favorite Emo Phillips jokes goies something like this: Psychiatrist: OK, I'm going to show you some pictures. What does this one look like? Emo: That looks like standard pattern 47 in the Rorschach series to test for obsessive-compulsive behavior. (doctor gets angry) Emo: OK, it looks like a butterfly.