A Formboard Demonstration.1
- Author:
Lightner Witmer, Ph.D.,
University of Pennsylvania.
Lynne was a chubby little boy of seven and a half years, who had been diagnosed as an epileptic at the University Hospital. A Wassermann test made a little later gave a negative result. The question which his mother wished to have decided at the Psychological Clinic was, whether or not he was educable, and to what school he should be sent. Several examinations were made. On one of these occasions Dr Witmer took him before the class in Mental Analysis, and tested him with the Witmer formboard.2 When Lynne arrived at the Clinic this afternoon, the table full of picture puzzles fascinated him. The social worker induced him to go upstairs to the demonstration room by taking a box with a puzzle in it and suggesting that they “go upstairs where there was a nice little table to fit him, in a big sunny room.” Then he went willingly enough. During his entire stay of nearly an hour his mind seemed fixed on the puzzle, and he made attempts from time to time to get back to it. “He is just at the stage,” said Dr Witmer, “when memory is an important item. Come over here, Lynne.” He came to the smaller table where the formboard was lying, but almost immediately went back to the larger table and his picture puzzle. Dr Witmer moved the formboard to the larger table, while an assistant gathered the pieces of the puzzle into the box and handed it to the social worker for safe keeping. “I want you to see how fast you can put these blocks away,” Dr Witmer said, adding for the benefit of the class, “See the distractable attention.” Lynne broke out in a halfwhine, half-growl, “I wanna go to Mamma.” He was chewing on something, probably gum, which impeded his articulation. When Dr Witmer said, “No, you go on with this,” Lynne grasped a block in each hand, and gazed around the room. Dr Witmer continued,? ” There is nothing here that can be called ‘ looking.’ That means there is no true observation. He is able to see things. He is even able to see the proper place for the blocks to go. He has two blocks now in the proper places, but he never looks around the board. That is faulty observation, a nearly complete lack of analytic attention. Now and then, almost by chance as he moves a block over the board, he seems to see the right space. We can tell that he actually > Reported by A. Travis, Recorder of the Psychological Clinic. 5 See Young, H. H. The Witmer Formboard. The Pstchol. Clinic, Vol. X, No. 4.
does see the right space. The block doesn’t slip in by pure accident, but there is a great deal of chance in his getting it in the right place. “He has a certain amount of understanding, a low grade of understanding of what this test is. This child does not fail completely to understand the test. Good! Now you have got four put away. Again he is trying a block in the right place. Good! You see, after doing all that, after showing a recognition of the block and the space where it should go, he tries to put the star in a triangle, and when it won’t go in he keeps wriggling it around and trying to force it in. That shows faulty understanding. He doesn’t comprehend that each one of these blocks has its appropriate space, and the block cannot possibly be forced into the wrong place. Are those right? (Lynne nodded assent.) No, they’re not. You fix them up and get them all in the right place.
“His performance with this formboard we would rate a failure, that is he cannot put all the blocks away without being continually stimulated to go on. He would be satisfied to leave these blocks resting over the wrong spaces. In other words, this performance is a failure unless we instruct him; and these words of incitement with which we encourage him to go on, are words of instruction. Without instruction he cannot perform this test. It is above his developmental level at the moment. Measuring his performance in terms of normal children, we can say that he is certainly below the four-year level, possibly below the three-year level. “Now we will make the instruction more specific. Take these out, they are not in the right places. Find the right place for that one. That’s not the right place. No, find the right place for that one before you give it up. (Lynne went on trying to squeeze the isosceles triangle into the equilateral space.) You see, he understands language. Try another place. Look all around and put it in the right place. That’s right. Now put that one in the right place. (Lynne was trying to force the ellipse into the diamond.) Try that place (pointing to the elliptical space). Now put another one away.”
Lynne placed correctly three blocks in succession. As soon as he had finished he went to the social worker, took from her the picture puzzle box, and brought it back to the table, where Dr Witmer took it away from him, saying,? “Try this again; try these all by yourself. There is no use keeping a record of the time there. Good! That’s a difficult one to put away, that isosceles triangle, and that shows a certain amount of memory. He has retained the position of that block. This one he hasn’t got so well. Now he has got it. Good! (Lynne tried the circle in the rectangle, than placed the rectangle in its own space and went back to put the circle in the circular space.) It seems like an almost impossible situation for a child, to do so well at one moment, and blunder so at the next. It looks as though his attention were dissipated. He has got them all put away except the two most difficult blocks.”
Lynne looked up and remarked, ” ‘At’s all right.” “No, they are not all right. Fix them right. Here again is a measure of intelligence and understanding. He had got everything done down to the last two blocks, which are somewhat similar. He can’t get them in, but instead of solving this particular problem, he keeps on in a very stupid way, trying to force the blocks into the wrong places. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him to change them. Perhaps almost by accident he will move over and try the block in the right place. Now he has got the block over the right place, but in an imperfect position. He has got his mind wholly on that one position. First he tried one block in it, then the other block, but he hasn’t yet solved it. Those two aren’t right (pointing to the two triangles).
“This boy’s mother says he is very anxious to learn. He has learned something here. I have here a record of his first examination. At the first trial with this formboard he was able to place the circle. The record reads,?’After innumerable trials he put the circle in the right place, and apparently it was done with comprehension, but none of the other blocks were put in the right place. He had to be urged to keep at the test. Dr Witmer selected the circle, the cross, and the semi-circle, and attempted to teach him to place these three blocks.’ No further tests were given at that time, the reason being that I did not want to spoil him for the tests today. He did very much better today.
“That’s good. Now you can do it all by yourself. I have a clock here (showing him the stop-watch) and I am going to see how fast you can do it. You see him in the process of learning,?either that or his attention is too fluctuating to hold him to the task. But this particular block, the square, which is one of the easiest next to the circle, he is not placing correctly, probably because he doesn’t keep his attention concentrated on the work in hand. That is a lack of persistent as well as of analytic attention. You see how he takes a block and tries to force it into the wrong position, keeping on stupidly trying to do it. We may call that a lack of analytic attention,?his failure to see that the block cannot possibly be forced into that space. He takes out one which is in the right place, in order to try the wrong block in that place. Now he has found the right place for the star. Good! You see he is learning how to do this, but he hasn’t yet learned it. He is just in the process of learning. Fine! Go ahead! Time: 2 minutes 30 seconds.
“We want to try it once more.” Lynne’s face fell, and a murmur of sympathy came from the class. “This is not a bitter disappointment, remember. Go ahead, quick! See how fast you can do it this time. He makes straight for the right place. Now he tries the square in the wrong place, in the circle, taking out the circle. Those of you who are near enough can observe a slight tremor of the hands as he tries to put these blocks away, like the hands of an old man. That would indicate some nervous disease, and caused us to send him over to the Medical Clinic last week. I regard him as primarily a medical case. Time: 1 minute, 30 seconds.”
Dr Witmer placed before Lynne the tray with two kinds of pegs, plain and colored. Told to pick out a red one, he gave yellow. Q. Is that right? A. Yeh. Q. Pick out a blue one, give me a blue one. Again Lynne gave yellow. Q. Give me another blue one like this. Lynne gave yellow for the third time. Dr Witmer remarked: “He doesn’t even know how to match colors, for when I said another, he gave me a different color from the one in my hand. Pick out one just like that” (red). Lynne picked up two yellow pegs and one blue, and handed them to Dr Witmer.
The pegs were taken away, and the Witmer cylinders put before him. Dr Witmer ran his fingers around the top of the cylinders as they stood in position, saying,?”See now they all fit? I am going to take these out and put them in there. Now you put them all back. From his performance with the formboard you can probably make some kind of estimate as to how long it would take him to do this test. The child who hasn’t got enough analytic attention to learn the formboard at seven years more quickly than he learned it, isn’t going to be able to learn his letters. To learn letters requires an acute detailed analytic attention to form as well as an understanding.” Lynne put the cylinders in at random, but showed better persistence than with the formboard, and his face wore a pleased expression. He put two short cylinders in the same deep socket, put very small cylinders into the largest holes, and tried to squeeze large cylinders into holes too small for them. One he got right by accident. Four were still unplaced, when he turned away and reached for the picture puzzle. Dr Witmer commented,?
“You see, the cylinder test is a failure, and there is no question of measuring his intelligence by that test. It is far above not only his level of development, but his level of intelligence. Good-bye Lynne, you may go down to your mother now, and come back to see us another day.”
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