Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1979,49, 366. @ Perceptual and Motor Skills 1979

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF INITIAL LETTER WORD ASSOCIATION TEST Belgrade, Yugoslavia' The validity of Initial Letter Word Association Test ( I L W A T ) , whose main characteristics have been presented elsewhere ( I ) , has been examined by two methods: the test's ability ( a ) to differentiate between two contrasting groups of subjects, stutterers and non-stutterers, and ( b ) to predict the contents of dreams. The test's reliability was examined by the test-retest method. Comparison of the test associations of small groups of stutterers and non-stutterers has shown that these associations by stutterers were different from those of non-sturrerers along the dimension of environmental press-no environmental press and aggresrion towards environment-no aggression towards environment. Stutterers were more aggressive toward the environment and the environment seemed more threatening t o them than to non-stutterers. According to psychoanalysis free associations. those on the Initial Letter Word Association Test, and dreams have a common origin in the unconscious. It was hypothesized that, if the test were valid, it should be able to predict, at least to some degree, the contents of dreams. The test successfully predicted the contents of dreams for 88 University students in 9 3 % of the cases and the dream contents of 28 fourth grade elementary school children in 9 7 % of the cases. The ability of the test to predict the dream content was assessed in terms of the similarity between the test and the dreams' contents. There were three main categories of similarity between dream and test contents: manifest, symbolic, and manifest-symbolic. Manifest similarity is seen when the words which signify the same or similar objects and situations are present both in the test and in the dream. Manifest similarity has three subcategories: direct, emotional, and situational. The second kind of similarity between rest and dream contents was symbolic similarity which occurs when the subject's test associations and his manifest dreams through the meaning of his symbols refer to the common latent content of both the rest and the dream. There were three subcategories of the symbolic similarity depending o n where the symbols are present: two-way symbolic similarity, one-way test-dream symbolic similarity, and one-way dream-test symbolic similarity. The third kind of similarity between test and dream contents is labeled manifest-symbolic similarity and comprises the first two. Each of these kinds of similarity has three degrees: low, medium, and high, depending o n the number of symbols or objects which refer to the common content. T h e test reliability was also confirmed. There was common content in the test associations of the two successive administrations of the test to a small group of subjects, as well as similarity of the contents between their repeated test associations and dreams. REFERENCE Some beginning results of using a new projective personality test. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1977, 45, 910. Accepted September 6, 1979. 'Request reprints from Momtilo Zivkovit, Risanska 5, 11000 Belgrade. Yugoslavia. A detailed report is o n file in Document N A P S 0 3 5 4 1 with Microfiche Publications, 440 Park Avenue South, New York, N. Y. 10016. Remit $3.00 for fiche o r $12.50 for photocopy. 1 . ZIVKOVIC, M.

Validity and reliability of Initial Letter Word Association Test.

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1979,49, 366. @ Perceptual and Motor Skills 1979 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF INITIAL LETTER WORD ASSOCIATION TEST Belgra...
46KB Sizes 0 Downloads 0 Views