Perceptual Completion Behavior in Juvenile Delinquents

Abstract

As part of a larger study concerned with the perceptual and cognitive correlates of delinquent behavior (3), differential ability on a test requiring perceptual completion was investigated. The specsc instrument employed was a version of the Street Gestalt Completion Test (4) in which familiar objects are represented by only partially drawings. Several considerations recommended the selection of this procedure. First, however, we would like to outline the rationale underlying the initial decision to study this form of behavior in delinquents. Why did we seek to discover a perceptual function which would dserentiate the delinquent boy from his more socialized peers? Speaking very generally, we suggest that the class of delinquent behavior which is loosely designated psychopathic (e.g., impulsive, unpremeditated, repetitive) has its origin in part in a retardation of perceptualcognitive de~elopment.~ Our aim, then, was to obtain measures of a relatively broad range of perceptual functions which we might expect to show developmental change, particularly within the age range during which delinquent behavior emerges. Specifically with reference to the Street Gestalt task, we fmd that Thurstone (5) reports that it earns signihcant loadings on two perceptual factors (A and F) which, roughly, can be regarded as closure and speed of perception, respectively. Also, there is some evidence to suggest that performance on this task is age-linked. Thurstone himself reports a positive correlation between age and Street accuracy score in his young adult sample. Verville and Cameron (6), using another version of the Street, find a young adult group to be strikingly superior to an older group in their ability to complete and identify the pictures. Livson, in an unpublished study, notes that our own version of the Street shows that the performance of pre-school children is significantly inferior to that of an adolescent sample and, furthermore, that there is an improvement with age even within his three to five year age range. Finally, indirect evidence is furnished by Street's own report (4) in which he observes that performance