Primitive forms of response to the Matrices test.

Recent work on intellectual development and the pathology of thinking suggested the possibility that intelligence tests do not tap certain primitive levels of thinking, and so do not measure effectively the intelligence of immature and deteriorated individuals. An examination of the performance of thirty-five middle-aged and elderly psychiatric cases, therefore, was expected to show that the Matrices test was inapplicable to this group of S9s (and possibly inapplicable to other primitive groups). It was argued that the breakdown of noegenetic processes and the operation of primitive forms of thought in these S9s distorts their performance on the Matrices test; the test fails to prevent the operation of primitive thinking, and the scoring system does not take this fact into account. The Progressive Matrices (1938) was administered individually, and S9s were encouraged to explain their choice of answers. The quantitative results suggested a number of conclusions: ( a ) The test problems steadily increase in difficulty, but the trend is broken at two or more points in each set by sharp stepwise increases, indicating either an inadequate grading of the difficulty of the problems, or a need for the S9s to shift to a higher level of intellectual activity. ( b ) The distribution of wrong answers is not what one would expect if the alternative answers other than the correct one are all equally unfitted to complete the matrix.  In order to explain these results we need to consider three factors influencing an S9s choice of answers. The first factor is the way S9s are influenced by a preference for the top line of alternatives rather than the bottom line, for alternatives on the right-hand side rather than the left-hand side, and for the first and last alternatives rather than those in between. These preferences can possibly be explained in terms of the “egocentricity” and “boundedness to outer-world stimuli” characteristic of deteriorated, and immature individuals. The second factor is the way S9s are influenced by a preference for answers which portray a part of the matrix, a simple or distorted figure like the correct one, or a global figure. These preferences can possibly be explained in terms of other characteristics of deteriorated and immature individuals, viz., the tendency to give responses based on habit rather than insight, to make errors in the application of ideas, and to fail to analyse a complex whole into its constituent parts. The third factor is the way the S9s are influenced by what appear to be primitive forms of thought acting in either compensatory or disruptive ways. Thus, in addition to noegenetic forms of thought, which characterize the thinking of normal people, the S9s in this inquiry showed various kinds and amounts of alogical behaviour, such as global and concrete responses, mechanization of response, inability to explain their performance, sensori-motor, egocentric and affective behaviour, fluidity of ideas and avoidance of reality. On the whole the results do not suggest that the Matrices test is ineffective when used on primitive S9s, provided the test is regarded as a test of “abstract” intelligence. The Matrices score, however, gives only a crude picture of the total intellectual organization of primitive S9s, and needs to be supplemented by data from other tests. In certain instances, S9s choose the right answer for the wrong reasons, especially when positional, figural and primitive cognitive factors conspire to produce this result; but the Matrices test keeps the successful use of primitive forms of thought down to a minimum, and even the forms that do intrude belong to the higher primitive levels. The findings have four main implications : ( a ) Spearman9s theory does not adequately account for the performance of primitive S9s on the Matrices test, but this inadequacy and others might be removed if the quantitative principles and anoegenetic processes were exploited in the fields of psychopathology and developmental psychology. ( b ) There is a limited number of separate primitive forms of thought which seem to be arranged in a hierarchy. The kind and amount of primitive thinking seems to vary with age, intelligence, and psychiatric type, and there seem to be marked individual differences.

Field of study: Medicine, Psychology