Seeing Eye-to-Eye: Internal Consistencies of Eye-Tracking Variables During Rorschach Administration

Considering the continuing interest in the use of eye-tracking technology for study of the Rorschach response process, the present study examines the internal consistencies for several eye-tracking indices during Rorschach administration. Many experimental psychologists have recently maintained that researchers should be interested in and report the internal consistency statistics of performance measures, including eye tracking in order to improve effect size, the power of hypothesis testing, and the replicability of findings. In the current study, eye-tracking variables more relevant to understanding top-down (goal-driven) processes showed good-to-excellent internal consistencies, while variables largely affected by bottom-up (stimulus-driven) processes showed questionable or poor internal consistency. The current findings provide support for recent research strategies of utilizing protocol-level eye-tracking averages to link to Rorschach coding variables. In addition, the current study found differences across cards for the eye-tracking variables, showing medium-to-large effect sizes, which provides evidence for the stimulus pull of the cards for visual search strategies, including variables not previously used in Rorschach research.