[Stimulus and response characteristics as determinants of the electrodermal orienting reaction in the Rorschach...

The Rorschach test was used as an experiment of perception to analyze (external and internal) stimulus-response and individual response specificity of electrodermal orienting response OR (skin conductance response SCR) to presentations of unstructured material. On a sample of 84 subjects (medical students and colleagues of the medical department) the partial effects of "card" (external stimulus), "affective content of the signification" (internal stimulus), and "subject" on the (range-corrected) electrodermal OR were analyzed. The variance-analytic model was highly significant. The highly significant card effect with a physiological variance component of about 9% was interpreted as a "novelty" component of the electrodermal OR. The examined response characteristic also had a significant effect on the electrodermal OR with a physiological variance component of about 1%. Yet the determining variable was not the affective content of the signification, but rather the complexity of the (affective) signification. This result was discussed in terms of information processing and conflict theory. The important interindividual OR variance of nearly 40% supported the concept of the individual specificity of physiological response.