Welcome back to Martial Attitude Voice, the podcast where we explore the intersections of discipline, psychology, and performance across a variety of domains. I’m Mathias Alberton, and today we’re diving deep into the origins, development, and implications of a fascinating tool in applied sport psychology—the Athlete Apperception Technique, or AAT.
This is a special episode, not just because of the subject matter, but because of our guest: Dr. Petah Gibbs.
Dr. Gibbs is a sport psychologist based in Australia, with an impressive career that spans collaborations with top-tier athletes and organisations in both hemispheres—from the AFL in Australia to the NBA in the United States. But what brings us together today is not just his applied experience, but his deep academic and psychoanalytic insight. Dr. Gibbs is the author and developer of the Athlete Apperception Technique—a projective test designed specifically for athletes, rooted in psychodynamic theory and inspired by tools like the TAT and the Rorschach.
We first heard about the AAT through his PhD supervisor, Professor Mark B. Andersen, who called it a bold and much-needed addition to the field. But as Petah reminds us in this conversation—behind every supervisor’s suggestion, there’s an author willing to take the leap.
In this episode, we talk about how chance meetings, lucky mentorship, and a lifelong love for psychodynamic theory led Petah to take on a PhD that would require him to bridge the gap between century-old ideas and modern elite sport. We explore how projective techniques—so often dismissed for being "too old" or "not empirical enough"—can actually give us access to the deeper layers of athletes' inner lives. Petah speaks candidly about referencing 19th-century sources in his thesis, drawing comparisons between Freud and Newton, and reminding us that while our environments evolve rapidly, human nature doesn’t change all that fast.
This is a rich, thoughtful conversation about theory, practice, and the humanity of sport—and I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Let’s jump in.
Also, If you are interested in Dr. Gibbs original research study, you can find it here: Gibbs, P. M., Marchant, D. B., & Andersen, M. B. (2016). Development of a clinical sport projective assessment method: The Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 9(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676x.2016.1180637
Abstract
Within the field of applied sport psychology, there is an increasing appreciation for diversity of training models, research methodologies, and therapeutic approaches. For example, psychodynamic formulations and interpretations have begun to appear more frequently in the sport psychology literature. In keeping with emerging psychodynamic viewpoints, we believe the time is right to introduce a qualitative sport-specific projective instrument: the Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). The AAT represents a new technique based on psychodynamic theory and established projective test construction principles. It was designed primarily as a clinical tool for practitioners and not as an instrument for quantitative research into personality. It does, however, have potential research applications, especially in clinical sport case study research and narrative analysis investigations. The AAT produces an idiographic understanding of athletes’ characteristics, anxieties, and motivations (both conscious and unconscious). We briefly review the literature on the development of projective techniques, explain the rationale underlying the development of the AAT, and present three sequential studies to explain the AAT image selection procedures that led to the final product.
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Discover all Dr. Petah M. Gibbs research here:
(Eds.) Applied Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology: Current Approaches to Helping
Clients (pp. 101-110). London, England: Routledge.
Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology: Current Approaches to Helping Clients (pp. 101-
110). London, England: Routledge.
Materials for Sport and Clinical Psychologists. London, Routledge.
assessment method: the Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). Qualitative Research in Sport,
Exercise and Health, 1-16. doi: 10.1080/2159676X.2016.1180637
homonegativity, sense of belonging, and depressive symptoms among Australian gay men. Journal
of Homosexuality. doi: 10.1080/00918369.2016.1190215
depressive symptoms among Australian gay men and lesbians. Journal of Homosexuality. 60(1), 1-
15. doi: 10.1080/00918369.2013.735933
symptoms among older adults: a test of sense of belonging as a mediating and moderating variable.
Age and Mental Health, 17(8), 1023-1029. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2013.805402
(Eds.), Routledge handbook of applied sport psychology: A comprehensive guide for students and
professionals (pp. 101-110). London, England: Routledge.
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Mathias Alberton (00:01.79)
Hello everyone. This is Mathias Alberton. I'm the creator of Martial Attitude. This is Martial Attitude Voice, as you know, is a podcast which explores a bit of the concept of discipline across different sports. But not only, I mean, we are trying to talk about also visual impairment, blindness. As you know, I am conducting a series of workshops here in London to create more confidence, special awareness and navigation skills in the visually impaired and blind community. And I am really interested in tools, psychology tools, if you wish, that can be applied in sports psychology or more generally in psychology. A time ago, we have actually had the opportunity to come across the Athlete Apperception Technique. And we have spoken about it with the supervisor of the PhD research, Mark B. Andersen. But of course, if there is a supervisor, there is an author. And the author is Petah Gibbs. And today we are with him talking about the Athlete Apperception Technique. Dr. Gibbs is based in Australia, where he works, of course, as a psychologist and has been collaborating with major leagues, both in Australia and US. So AFL, NBA. So this level of sport and sports psychology, applied sports psychology. So there is a lot about his own career that I'm interested in. And of course, about the development of the AAT. Just to give an idea, his work has been cited something like nearly 250 times, which is in academic terms, no bad at all. Pita, how do you do?
Petah Gibbs (02:14.479)
Hello, good to speak to you from sunny Melbourne.
Mathias Alberton (02:20.614)
Alright, yes, London today is alright. I mean, we did have a couple of weeks of wonderful weather. Today is a bit more London-ish.
Petah Gibbs (02:31.183)
Yeah, well, thanks for that introduction. Yes, and I'm really happy as also my PhD supervisor, Mark Andersen and Daryl Marchant, my supervisors for my thesis or dissertation. This has been a passion project, you know, something we really love doing. so we love talking about it because it's not something as Mark had alluded to in his podcast, it's not something that is really well used. And that's overselling it. It's probably used by very few people. But it comes from a school of psychology that isn't overly well represented in the world today. In general psychology, let alone sports psychology, it's even less represented, the psychodynamic, even psychoanalytic approach. But it can be a fabulous tool for people and I know, we all know several people that have used it in their practice and really find some benefit. So if that helps the therapeutical relationship and alliance for those people and the clients, then that's fantastic. Doesn't have to be a well-used and well-published test, but we've put it out there and hopefully some people are interested.
Mathias Alberton (04:04.38)
Well, yeah, that's a very... You know, we're going a bit ahead of ourselves, but I think that is a very good point. We create things, we create concepts, we create ideas as human beings. And then it's for the others to see the value of them. But of course, we are content with ourself because we create them. So the first sounding board is ourself. The others are just magnifying the effect of something that is inherently good. And I think this is the difference between, let's say, greatness and success to a certain extent. As I understand success is something that is given. It cannot be really taken. So maybe, you know, the AAT will become successful, but it doesn't mean that he isn't great already. What do you think about this?
Petah Gibbs (05:17.072)
Yeah, I completely understand what you're saying there. yeah, look, it might get some more traction. Certainly people have reached out from different countries and asked if they could, you know, translate it into, I think, Japanese, Spanish, you know. it's not something that we're looking to market or sell or, you know, make any profit from, obviously. It's simply a tool that could be used and practitioners around the world and from different areas of the world, if they're interested in using it, then yeah, they go for it.
Mathias Alberton (06:02.032)
Your background, psychology background, is very much in psychoanalysis and you have studied in the is that correct?
Petah Gibbs (06:17.095)
Yes, I did my undergrad and started my masters in the US. So I was there for quite a while. just by chance and look, I think this sometimes it's just a bit of luck, just circumstance. If I'd gone to university here in Australia, I would have been taught CBT and been pushed down the clinical psychology route because predominantly that's what's pushed here in Australia. I mean, I've been an academic psychology lecturer for many years. Probably about 10 years ago, I stopped doing that and taught at a few different universities here. Very much so the psychology landscape in Australia is dominated by cognitive behavioural. And almost, and some people might not agree with this, but my view on it is that it's almost like clinical psych is seen as the true pinnacle of psychology and everything else isn't quite as good. And I don't know where that comes from, but studying in America, look, it might be somewhat that way. I just happened to be, was in Louisville, Kentucky and my university had several professors that were very psychodynamic oriented. So therefore, they were the people I really hung on to every word. You know, those lectures really got to me. And that's where sometimes it's just the people that really inspire you that you cling to. And then you get influenced by their ideas and their theories. So just by chance, the teachers that I really jumped onto that were spouting psychodynamic. And they were talking about psychodynamic psychology as an equal to cognitive and behavioral and humanistic, know, all the different areas of psychology, this eclectic approach versus what I found in Australia. And certainly when I had to lecture, I had to change my attitudes that it was like, yeah, they're kind of there, but they're all more like a history of psychology. Let's focus on cognitive and behavioral.
And so I was just lucky and it just rang true to me in my own mind. And so I followed down that path and then I did my masters in psychoanalysis. know, a big, big lover of Freud, much to a lot of people's disgust. I get chal... I don't... There's something... I guess there probably are some people, maybe not so much in Europe or if you're in New York or South America in some countries where you can say that and people say, that's interesting. I've found people generally look at me like I'm an idiot, like Freud, well, he was a coke head and he was an idiot and he didn't know anything. So I generally don't talk too much about my love of Freud. So I was more trained in the Lacanian school, Jacques Lacan, the French Psychoanalytic Institute. And so from that, I eventually got, so I was lecturing in psychology. I was really ingrained in psychology, but I had a couple of people, I've been involved in sport as an athlete and then just with friends playing sport at a very high level. And so I got asked to come down to couple of local clubs and help, you know, do a little bit of sport psychology with some of the younger athlete, the amateur athlete. And I really enjoyed that. didn't know much about, I didn't know anything about basketball. It's not really a game I absolutely love, although I've spent a lot of time working in it. It was very much just about the people, you know, I never considered myself I certainly am not a sports psychologist. I've never considered myself a person that works with athlete. And maybe that's part of my training. My focus has always been working with people and their job happens to be an athlete. And so just from working with people, I got more and more opportunities just asked of me to work with professional athlete, you know, the Professional Basketball League in Australia.
one of our Australian football, I've started doing personality profiling, which is kind of my core area now. so, you know, character profiling. I've worked with one of the clubs here in the Australian Football League for 18 years now. So I still do that. But then I really just moved more and more into working with individual people who played basketball at very high level and that led to people that played in our national team, it led to people playing overseas in America in the NBA. And so that's where I went. And then I eventually moved from that to the union, basically the Australian Basketball Players Association. So I've worked there the last eight years and as working in the, I basically ran the development and wellbeing program. I developed that ran it and so we work with all Australian professional basketballers, male and female, national team players and our players over in America. And I just finished up with them last year, just felt like I'd had enough working in sport. Probably five years ago, working with athlete in that sport, I started just developing relationships and more and more it became, it was, it was more about a personal relationship, somebody that we could chat and they weren't, I didn't do psychology sessions. As such, I probably did some group work, which was just education, really. And it might be psychology education, talking about all different areas of sports psychology, which I had to learn myself because I've never studied sports psychology. never really took any classes on it or did it as a degree. I'm just working work in psychology. But it was fascinating to me. I do more and more of that. A lot of the, I think the relationships really developed because to me, know, psychology is all about the relationship. And the relationships ended up being so much about the personal issues of the person. You know, if you want to call it a client, you know, when I was working with the union, was our member. And then I heard more and more about some of the real stresses that were going on and that was not being paid, not being paid on time and getting contracts cancelled and getting a 12 month injury and having a contract cancelled. Then suddenly you can't play anywhere and you're unemployed and no one's looking after you. So I got an interest in law. So I did my JD, the Juris Doctor in law and so and then I did all my supervision. now I'm currently I've moved out of psychology and I'm currently practicing law. So I'm a legal practitioner here in Victoria, Australia. Don't do so much sport law. I am more working in the crossover between psychology and law. So there's a massive field of psychology and law and that's not forensic psychology, but it touches into forensic psychology. So this is looking at how our psychology educates and influences law and how law influences and educates psychology. So that's probably the main area that I work in now.
Mathias Alberton (14:27.622)
And because of the development of the Athlete Apperception Technique, we are here to talk about this experience of yours, experience of studies in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic. I'm actually very interested in understanding how, so how did you determine which psychoanalytic or psycho-dynamic concepts would best translate to the athletic population, especially when traditionally the perspective are, you know, the projective tests created before were never designed with athlete in mind.
Petah Gibbs (15:22.647)
Yes, again by chance, you know, I guess a lot of our lives, if not all our lives, are, you know, so much determined by chance and luck, we can call it. I happened to meet my supervisor, Daryl Marchant, who introduced me and, you know, when we had a chat and talked about what I would like to do for my PhD thesis. He said, well, I've got the man to talk to you know, Professor Mark Anderson, and he's the genius. And so and I say that with all due respect to Mark, I always think of him as the genius because he's so well published, he can pump out a brilliant article in a weekend and get it published. And just the way he thinks is you know, outside the box. So, you know, I've always admired that. He and Daryl had been talking about this idea. think Mark had thought about it as an idea and he posed it to me. So it wasn't something that I came up with. He threw it out there because he knew that I had an interest in psychodynamic psychology. And he said, why don't you go and have a look at it and see if it's something you'd be interested in studying. Um, and I've always said that to PhD students, I've supervised master students. Uh, I've always said you've got to find a topic that you really love because it's such a slog, particularly a PhD dissertation. Uh, you're going to spend three or four years of your life and that's all you're going to be focused on. If you don't love the topic, you're just not going to finish it. And it's, and even if you do it, you're just going to get a fall across the line and it'll be half baked.
And so I looked at it and thought, wow, this is totally in my wheelhouse. I'm going to look at a sport population and apply psychodynamic theory to it. And so started in earnest into a deep dive of theory. And of course, probably one of the funniest things about my thesis, if you look at all of the references, know, a few hundred, three, four, five, six hundred references at the bottom of the paper. There's so many of them. It's probably, know, modern research would look at it say, this is rubbish. Why are half of your references from before 1950? I mean, they're completely out of date. They've got no relevance. But the issue was this is when all of this rich information came about. It came from Leppich University in the 1830s, 40s, this whole where psychology was really starting to begin and then Freud in late 1800s. so then it came to the American researchers, Murray and Morgan, who developed the thematic apperception test, this, the athlete apperception Technique is based on. And so, you know, all of that theory was really informing me. that theory is rich and it can't be just ignored as old because it hasn't, it hasn't aged because people are still people. The world around us has changed. Our environment has changed. The way we look at the world may have changed, but we are still people.
The same people that have been around for hundreds of years or longer. it's really, I mean, the whole idea was really tapping into this holistic analysis, this looking at the total person, this idea of idea, idea graphic perspective versus the non-mathetic. So then in psychology, the non-mathetic, we're basically comparing to others. The Idiographic is this unique combination of traits, know, so Mark had mentioned on his podcast, the how important it would be for people to do case studies of individual athlete. Because we get so much information out of that. It doesn't always go in line with what a lot of research that's published. Because, you know, people want to see how many how many subjects do you have and what the numbers are and all of that. some people will just roll their eyes and laugh when they say, yeah, well, I spoke to three athlete and I've got really in-depth data and done a real case study analysis on three athlete. Is that representative of the population? Well, maybe not, but it's representative of the human condition. It's representative of the total person. And it's a unique perspective.
So that was really the beginning of it, looking at the ideographic perspective and also the projective perspective versus the objective. The objective is larger populations, the limited range, probably more traditionally 99 % of all psychology tests, certainly sports psychology testing that's done is very objective, know, pencil and paper. Here are some forced responses. Here's a question. You're forced to answer in one of these. I I use the Neo a lot. And so it's not that I've got anything against it. I love that tool. And I use that particular test a lot. But you do see every now and then people will not circle a question. They'll write on the paper. Because I like to give paper rather than the like an online version they write on the paper. I don't know how to answer this because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now that's not within really within the scope of the administration of the test. But they wanted to say more about that because they've had a lived experience and these five forced answers don't necessarily give them that scope. So definitely the projection, the protective was the focus here. You know, it's certainly less obvious in intent got less structure and it's interpretive too for not only the client but for the clinician.
Mathias Alberton (22:17.5)
I want to make immediately another question, but I can't refrain myself. I really need to, I feel a need, I'm compelled to go back a second to what you said just now, a couple of minutes ago about Freud and about your reference list quoting studies of the 1930s. you know, "what a crap!" "they are too old to be relevant".
Petah Gibbs (22:48.775)
Well, the Rorschach, the Rorschach from, you know, 100 years old, essentially, and still well in use today. I mean, I just went to a conference in June last year in Denmark, the International Rorschach Society, you know, and a huge number of people and people, practitioners that use it all over, even forensic practitioners from the United States, but probably half the population there because they use the results of a raw shot when they're testifying in court as a expert witness. Because the courts allow the raw shot. The raw shot is endorsed by the American Psychological Association, therefore it's a legitimate test. So while some people might laugh at an inklot test, it is a legitimate forensic instrument that is used in determining the mental state of clients in the court of law.
Mathias Alberton (23:48.984)
I wanted to tap onto a single aspect of this consideration. Of course, there is a projective test, the Rorschach, so for the listener who might be not really acquainted with the idea, but are the inkblots. So, you know, the blots of the butterflies, let's say, which are very, very famous, also artistically speaking.
So that is the test we are referring to. And then possibly we will talk about the TAT as well, which is another projected test which has been created as well, not exactly yesterday, but some time ago. But when you were referring to Freud and the idea that some of the theories are old, well, it was funny to me because, you know, if I am writing a PhD dissertation in the motion of a new element in engineering that is helpful for a new model of helicopter. I would, in all honesty, still work upon, let's say in literature terms, I would still work on the shoulders of the giants. So it's not that a citation of 1600s would be any bad because I'm just citing Isaac Newton. So it's not that the idea was developed long time ago and the idea was valid enough. It's still valid enough. So for Freud, the ideas of a tapping into the individuals, not only as they express themselves in social terms, but as existing beyond, beside, aside, before, underneath the social terms is a valid point. It was a valid point in the 40s. It's still a valid point now. So it's kind of funny to say, that's old stuff. It really doesn't apply anymore. Well, in a way, think that just to have some fun, I feel much more similar to Fred Finlston of the Flinkstons than to Captain Kirk in Star Trek. I mean, the idea here is that everyone, I believe there is a development, but more likely, more recently, technological development since the 1700s. And that is going faster and faster and faster. And therefore there is a misunderstanding that mankind has evolved. as mankind as a whole interconnected with one another, it might well be, but then as human beings, we're still pretty much there. We are not evolving throughout our span so much to catch up with the evolution of the overall project, humanity project, if you know what I mean. Isn't it something like that?
Petah Gibbs (27:52.446)
Yes, probably because they also again, probably back to one of my original comments that, you know, it's maybe just a piece of chance that I happened to find some teachers that I really liked that were psychodynamic. So I went down that path and then I was lucky enough to find a couple of PhD supervisors that were very psychodynamic as well. You know, I mean, very eclectic, both of them, but certainly had an interest in psychodynamic. then, know, students in Australia, I mean, I know that from teaching at different, you know, three or four different universities, I mean, teaching intro psych and understanding what we're supposed to be teaching and the syllabus and all of that. They're very much taught this, you know, CBT is the way to go. Everything else is cute, but and you can use it, but, you know, let's focus on what's real. And we get all these new, you know, we get all these new re recreations of humanistic psychology, you know, the the act positive psychology, all of these things all all great in their own way, but they're they're just rehashed humanistic psychology from the 60s. In essence. So, you know, and I don't need to think about this is all just my personal biased view, of course. Yeah. So you can under, I think I can always understand people are told, you know, alone, no undergrad students in Australia are pretty much told Freud's an old school kind of character. Don't listen too much that the rubbish he didn't know that much, blah, blah, blah. I mean, he admitted he didn't know that much in himself in his writing, because he was the only person in the world really writing about it or in the Western world, at least, you know, so, you know, people are influenced by their environment.
So therefore, you know, it is difficult to suddenly be told, you should really be really listening to Freud and you should really be, you know, embracing a projective test when everything they've been taught through years and years of education has been no, don't touch that. That's that stuff's kind of not that useful and it's pretty old and out of date.
Mathias Alberton (30:12.744)
This is actually an extremely good point for tapping into the AAT because I mentioned before the TAT, another projective test developed in the 50s, if I'm not completely wrong.
Petah Gibbs (30:28.836)
Yeah, there's hundreds of them. There's more than a hundred projective tests. Like I did a super deep dive. I was fortunate enough to, I went to study at the University of Tennessee for six months. And I worked under, when I was developing the image test for the AAT, worked under Wes Morgan, who's written several books on Henry Murray and the development of the images, particularly the images. So it's like, you know, it's face value in terms of quantitative test development, you've got to make sure your questions are right. For my Honours thesis I developed with Daryl Marchant, who's my supervisor then, a social desirability test, which was to be embedded into all quantitative sports tests. So it was written in for sports people, a similar thing, another adaption for an athlete population. Because social desirability isn't taken seriously enough, I don't think, in pencil and paper tests. I mean, is it true what people are saying to you? And I use these constantly. I do hundreds of these a year. But I always use social desirability tests because it gives you little bit of a measure of like, how much is this person really telling the truth or are they giving us a real full representative of who they are? Representation?
So we developed that. that, you know, for me, that's where projective tests are fascinating because it really, it completely takes that whole idea of social desirability out the window. It's not something you have to worry about. Everybody that fills out a questionnaire, pencil and paper test, if you don't have an idea of what the social desirability, the response bias is you've got to take it as well, maybe I just hope they're telling the truth. But if there are people going for a job, of course they're to tell you what you want to hear or what they think you want to hear. so you might get a person that scores very high on a lie, lie scale or a social desirability scale, which is really the proper term, because people aren't outright lying for a reason. They're just trying to present themselves in the best possible manner they think you want to see. you've got to, you know, looking at those, at least if you get somebody really high on social doserability scale, you can still look at their results, but you just got to, you can just look and say, okay, they're really trying to present themselves really well. So I've got to understand this is how, for example, on five fact, using the five factor model on a Neo, here are their scores, scoring very high in the in these areas or very low in these areas, whichever it is, what are they trying to say? Because they're super high in social desirability. They're really trying to an issue, present themselves in a certain way. So that's what I also like about projective tests is you completely, you can really, it's almost like, you know, it's not fooling. I wouldn't want to say that if you give a, give a client a projective test, but it's there to evoke imagery and fantasy. It's there. You know, you get multiplicity of responses. You get this rig richness of responses as well. but you can really throw people to it's like, tell me what you see in this picture, whether it's a butterfly and inkblot, or it's a image like the AOT or a couple of people standing there having an interaction. There's no social desirability going on there. They're just going to tell you a story about what they see and that gives you a lot of rich data. Can I drop in like one of the old classic and I don't know if you've heard it and probably many listeners have, used to start when I started talking about the raw shot particularly in my classes I used to love telling this joke because I think it actually really well explains the idea of the raw shot. So a psychiatrist sitting with the client says I want to show you some inkblots.
He shows the client the first inkblot and the client says, he has a disgusted look on his face. He said, that's two people having sex. He said, OK, and what about this one? Shows him the next one. He says, that's two people having sex, but upside down in different position. He said, well, what do you what do you think this one looks like? And the client says, I'm not even going to answer that question. They can't even tell you what I can see in that picture. And the psychiatrist looks at the client and said, think you have an obsession with sex. And the client says, I have an obsession with sex. You're the one showing me all the dirty pictures. So I think that as stupid as joke that might be, I think it's really good example of explaining what a projective test does.
Mathias Alberton (35:43.346)
Yep. think, look, Petah, this conversation is already too good on itself to imagine anything else because it is really an ideal. didn't even plan beforehand to have this kind of conversation. It's kind of a beautiful introduction to other conversation we might have on the AAT because it's the introduction to the test. So a bit of the theory, a bit of the history, a bit of the perspective which has been derived from and why. Before dwelling really in the creation of the test, the challenges that the test has posed to you in creating the images, in selecting the images, in posing the right question, as you were saying before. And if you are on an agreement with me, I think that is really this is perfect moment to give it a wrap so that we can then take it from here next time and dive into the creation of the Athlete Apperception Technique and what the images are and how they are presented. Would you agree on this?
Petah Gibbs (37:14.683)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And I apologize because I probably talk too much, I probably talk too much because I'm excited talking about it because it's because I, you know, probably I've moved a bit away from psychology. I don't, nobody outside psychology, certainly nobody, you know, even in psychology, nobody outside people who are interested in projective tests want to talk about this. So I'm always, you know, I love to talk about it. could talk about it for hours. And yeah, so yeah, very, very happy to talk about it. And just on the name, I did notice, the thematic outperception test, you know, lot of all of these, and there are more than 100 projective tests out there, with different theoretical versions and visions to them. Murray called it a test.
Murray actually got the idea very quickly. Murray got the idea from an undergrad student for the thematic epiception test. She had a blind son and she said, how do we do measurement? You know, what is it when a blind person says they can see? What does that really mean? And how do we measure people that, you know, can't read traditional pen and paper tests that don't have access to Braille and things like that and get that kind of information. And just through that as an undergrad student at him and he had that idea of like, well, she said she used to sit and read with her son with a picture book and explain the pictures and then ask the son just say, this is what's happening in the picture. So she's giving the basic description of the picture and then saying, you tell me a story about what's happening here. What's going on? What's going to happen? And who are the people and what are they thinking and feeling? And she said the story time became just a fantastic thing for her. And Murray straight away took that and with his partner, Christina Morgan, they developed that. I want to say that. And I also wanted to add, if I can.
Petah Gibbs (39:26.953)
I thank Daryl and Mark for all the work that they've done with me on this and their supervision. And I'm not an easy gradual student as Mark Anderson, like he calls all his students, gradual students, not graduate students, because we're all so slow at what we do. So as a gradual student, but also my sister is an artist lives in New York. So she actually drew the drawings. She's a little bit embarrassed by them because they're very, very basic, but they're basic for a reason. They've got to be very basic.
So she actually drew those up. And also I chained my mother in the basement and got her to transcribe hundreds of thousands of words. And I gave her, you know, 10 cents a day maybe. But she, you know, because we collected so much data from athlete, amateur athlete, semi-professional athlete, looking at the pictures, the original images and collecting all the information. So there was hundreds and hundreds. I think there was about 600,000 words of transcription that was done of their stories so that we could really look at what are these images actually tapping into, what are the common themes and things like that. So I have to give a shout out to my mum there because she's the one that transcribed the majority of them. But anyway, I will stop talking because I know we're over time.
Mathias Alberton (40:41.64)
That is super, no, no, no, no, it's absolutely super fine. And I really think this is a phenomenal, I mean, even this acknowledgement are exactly important because they give us kind of the gauge of how complex the thing was. And that is where we want to tap in next time. Thank you very much for having this conversation with me. I really loved it. Thank you very much.
Petah Gibbs (41:17.48)
Thank you.
Mathias Alberton (41:19.006)
And thank you, of course, everyone who has listened to this episode of Martial Attitude Voice. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. And I sincerely hope we sparkled a vein of interest to dwell into a bit more in the future. I remind you that I am Mathias Alberton. I am creating a training program specifically for visually impaired and blind people with workshops running every Sunday in central London. And if you are interested or you know someone who might be interested, please, as usual, you know, you keep in touch.