IU - A Digital Application for the Graphical Examination of Interpersonal Attachment

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Human attachment is crucial for interpersonal relationships.
• Nonverbal assessments, like drawing tasks, offer an alternative to traditional methods for measuring attachment.
• A novel digital drawing tool was developed to assess interpersonal attachment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the internal criterion validity of a new digital drawing tool for measuring interpersonal attachment.
• To explore the relationship between drawing patterns and social orientation scores.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study with 68 participants paired into groups of two.
• Participants completed a Social Orientation (SO) subscale and then engaged in a 3-minute drawing task while maintaining eye contact.
• Drawing movements were analyzed using mean Euclidean distance and compared to SO score differences via linear regression.

Main Results:

• A moderate correlation (r = 0.298) was found between drawing patterns and SO score differences, though it narrowly missed statistical significance (p = 0.09).
• The study found limited evidence for the criterion validity of the digital drawing tool.

Conclusions:

• The digital drawing tool shows potential but requires further validation.
• Future research should explore alternative time series similarity measures, such as Manhattan Distance, to enhance results.