A Study On Figure Rotation In the Bender-Gestalt Test

In 1938, Lauretta Bender published the Bender-Gestalt test. Since then the test has gradually become popular among the clinical psychologists. After some years' experience with the test, it becomes clear that preschool chidren, mental defectives, patients with brain pathology or schizophrenic desorder lose very frequently the gestalten of the figures which they are asked to copy. Among the destruction phenomena of figure gestalten, the following are found most often; rotation, perseveration, and fragmentation of figure elements. Of these phenomena, figure rotation has been the one in which clinicians are most interested, because the same phenomenon also occurs quite often in the Goldstein cube test. Shapiro's study on the rotation phenomenon in the Goldstein cube test is interesting and stimulating. In the study he said, ' .... that it was due to exaggerated negative induction in the brain of organic cases that these patients were more prone to produce rotation phenomenon.' In 1956, Yates, being stimulated by Shapiro's suggestion, applied the hypothesis of exaggerated negative induction to the study of the Bender-Gestal test. In the same year, Harold et al repeated the study done by Shapiro.