Autokinetic word technique: an attempt at replication

Autokinetic word technique and personality

24 male subjects were divided into four groups on the basis of their scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory and were administered the autokinetic word technique test as elaborated by Rechtschaffen and Mednick (1955), with numbers of words and letters reported constituting the response measures. Stable introverts reported significantly more words and letters than stable extraverts; there was no difference between neurotic introverts and neurotic extraverts. On the basis of the large inter-subject variability, the usefulness of the autokinetic-word situation in the investigation of projection is doubted.

Autokinetic word writing

Role-playing and standard instructions were administered to 100 Ss during autokinetic word-writing sessions. Role-playing instructions produced more words than standard instructions with no apparent loss of projection. It was hypothesized that role-playing instructions decreased the degree of ambiguity accompanying AWT. This hypothesis was not supported.

Autokinetic word writing as a function of variations in instructions

An attempt was made to determine whether or not variation in autokinetic word writing (AWT) instructions would increase word production. Normative characteristics of 99 Ss' word productions are presented. It was generally concluded that, while increased word production does result from different instructions, the reliability of this response measure remains questionable.