Association Between Galvanic Skin Response and Rorschach Performance

GSR was monitored during Rorschach testing. High GSR's were associated with (1) short reaction times, (2) initial responses to Cards II and VII, and (3) the following categories of initial response: S, m, FK, cF, H, (//), and (A). GSR may be considered an index of the subject's anxiety level; the findings are ex-plained in these terms. V-/NE APPROACH to an understanding of the dynamics of a testing situation is through the medium of physiological measurement. The present report repre-sents an attempt to throw light on Ror-schach performance by monitoring con-comitant changes in GSR. The GSR is commonly regarded as a part of the emergency reaction of the sympathetic nervous system: Duffy3 and Schlosberg12 both consider it an indica-tor of the state of arousal or activation of the organism, while McGinnies7 takes it as a measure of anxiety. Although the use of one autonomic measure in isola-tion can, because of response specificity, be misleading, it seems reasonable to accept the GSR as an emergency or anxiety signal, and it is in this way that it is employed in the present study. The GSR has been used by earlier in-vestigators of the Rorschach, notably Rockwell et al.,10'n who tested two pos-sible hypotheses relating to color shock