From: robert@vnet.ibm.com (Rob Lockstone)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 17:00:38 EST
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Sanity Certification
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not those of IBM
News-Software: UReply 3.0

In <69944@cup.portal.com> Mark Robert Thorson writes:
>It seems to me that it is possible to create a first-level screening
>test for insanity, e.g. combining elements from the MMPI, Rorschach,
                                                           ---------
>Stanford-Binet, electroencephalogram, etc.

What an amazing coincidence!  Such a test has *already* been developed.
Please read on for further details.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       News Flash! : 1 July 1992

   This afternoon alone, 852 people will be declared legally insane.
   That's just in Toledo.  Across the country, homes, offices, and
   factories are emptying and mental hospitals are filling up, all
   because of one man: Dr. Fritz Smudge.  Smudge has revolutionized
   psychiatry by discovering that there *are* definite answers to the
   Rorschach test -- the projective personality test pioneered in 1922
   by the eminent Dr. Hermann Rorschach.

   Most commonly known as the inkblot test, Rorschach's test asks a
   person to describe the images that come to mind when he views a
   series of strange, symmetrical ink patterns.  Until recently,
   psychiatrists interpreted the patients responses without concern
   as to whether the series of inkblots had specific meanings.

   Now, thanks to Smudge, they have definitive answers, all recorded
   in a set of handwritten notebooks by Rorschach called "The Inkblot
   Answer Book".  Smudge claims he happened upon the historic notebooks
   while on a skiing trip.

   "They were cheap.  I found them in a used bookstore in Switzerland,"
   Smudge said, beaming.  "And I was able to write off my vacation as a
   business expense!"

   After realizing the importance of his find, he turned the weathered
   notebooks over to the experts at the American Rorschach Society (ARS).
   They were stunned by what was there.  In addition to answers for the
   ten blots in common use, the notebooks contained 8,376 never-before-
   seen-blots, plus detailed instructions on how to make new ones.

   "It was incredible!" Smudge revealed.  "They even told you how to
   fold the paper without getting the ink on your hands."

   After having spent eight and a half months deciphering Rorschach's
   poor handwriting, the ARS finally unveiled the New Improved Rorschach
   Test in Ohio last month.  (It comes in two versions: One for patients;
   One for doctors, which has the answers on the back.)

   "It appears we were all wrong," an ARS spokesdoctor commented.
   "Psychiatry *is* an exact science.  Now a patient has to give us a
   definite answer.  If he misses too many, we lock him up.  It's kind
   of like quantitative analysis, only messier."

   Already a majority of the world's psychiatric professionals rely on
   the 8,376 new patterns in their diagnostic workups, and mental health
   hospitals are packed.  Under the New Rorschach Test rules, a person
   has to correctly identify 85 per cent of the blots to be declared
   legally sane.  So far, that has proven difficult for most people.

   The result?  "Everyone's crazy!" crowed Smudge.  "It's like
   Christmas!"

   According to the notebooks, the reason Rorschach made his test so
   hard was to weed out "all those people who are talking about me
   behind my back."

   While it is admittedly difficult, the New Rorschach Test has brought
   with it certain advances.  Not only can psychiatrists make more
   precise diagnosis, they can do it more quickly.  A patient who used
   to require weeks of elaborate examinations and interviews can now be
   locked up within an hour.

   But Smudge and the ARS are still not satisfied.  "It is not fast
   enough," Smudge said, sighing.  "There are so many crazies out there
   and so few tests."

   He thinks the answer to the problem lies in the last of the Rorschach
   notebooks, which is simply entitled "The Big Blot".  In it is
   Rorschach's master plan for "testing the masses." He envisioned having
   crowds of people viewing oversize inkblots on paper measuring
   eight-and-one-half by eleven kilometers.  (One blot alone would
   require thousands of gallons of ink.)  But ultimately, Rorschach was
   forced to abandon his dream:  "Not enough sane people to help me..."

   Smudge considered trying it himself, but the scale of the project
   was intimidating.  "You'd need three thousand men just to fold the
   thing, and it would take a week for the ink to dry."

   Inspired by Rorschach's vision, however, Smudge is busy working on
   his own version of the megablots.

   "We'll put them up along highways and in malls, like billboards, and
   send out questionnaires to everyone in the vicinity," he said.  "It
   will be a closed-book test."

   When asked how he would prevent someone from looking up the answers
   and cheating, Smudge answered, "Simple.  We plan to use the honor
   system.  In fact, we hope to make the honor system a federal law.
   Violation of the law would be punishable by death.  No one would
   dare to cheat."

   Even without billboard blots, the longterm effects of Rorschach's
   notebooks are clear:  As long as we have ink and paper, we'll have
   crazy people.

   But just how did Hermann Rorschach hit upon the idea of using those
   funny blobs of ink?  The answer was found in one of the rare
   notebooks.

   It seems that Rorschach was struggling to devise a true-or-false
   insanity quiz when he accidentally knocked over a bottle of ink.
   Noticing how the blot looked like a little bunny, he excitedly
   showed it to some friends.

   "That's not a bunny," a girl challenged.  "That's an elephant!"

   "You're *crazy*!" Rorschach shouted.  And the rest is history.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

..Rob
 "A smile is a powerful weapon; you can even break ice with it."
_____________________________________________________________________
Robert K. Lockstone         | Internet: robert@vnet.ibm.com
IBM Corp. - Boca Raton, FL  |    Phone: (407)982-1025
Subsystem & VLSI Test Tools | "A day without sunshine is like night."
Newsgroups: sci.psychology