Measurement of Primary Process Content in Paintings

Abstract

In order to investigate whether rating scales could be used to measure primary process content in paintings, a study of responses to a series of nine nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings was conducted. One group of subjects rated these paintings on several ratings scales. A second group of subjects wrote stories in response to each of the paintings. The stories were scored for primary process content employing procedures used in previous studies of stylistic evolution in poetry. There were high negative correlations between amount of primary process content in texts elicited by a painting and ratings on naturalistic, representational, meaningful, and photographic dimensions. Amount of primary process content in stories elicited by a painting increased as a function of artist's birthdate.