Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Rod-and-Frame Box: A Portable Version of the Rod-and-Frame Test

1967; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2466/pms.1967.25.1.152

1558-688X

Jim Morris,

Psychological Testing and Assessment

The rectangular Rod-and-Frame Box (RFB), 22 cm X 22 cm X cm, is constructed of wood .75 cm thick and weighs 2 kgm. One of the (22 cm X 22 cm) walls is fitted with a viewer shaped to S's face. The box is completely light-tight, blackened on the inside, and the viewer is lined with foam rubber so that, when S presses his face to it, no light enters the box. As an additional precaution, a black cloth can be fitted to this end of the box and placed over S's head during testing. Through the viewer S inspects a luminous rod (11.3 cm long, 3 mm in diameter) within a luminous frame (11.5 crn square, the lines 3 mm thick). The frame is painted on a circular section which can cake up two positions, allowing a tilt of he frame 28 right or left. Magnets mounted on the box and on the movable section, are so placed as to give the correct deviation and to hold the frame in position. The rod, mounted independently at the centre of the frame, can be moved through 360. The position of the rod can be controlled by S by means of a knob situated on the right side of the box. The deviation of the rod from the vertical position can be read by E on a protractor which swivels on the same shaft as the rod. The protractor is siruated on the back of the box and is therefore not visible to S. The luminous paint is activated by turning the viewer towards a strong light source, e.g., the sun or an ultra-violet lamp. The luminosiry tends to fade very slowly and thus the paint is reactivated after testing each S. A spirit-level is used to make sure the box is horizontal. The RFB forms a compact unit which cannot be dismantled bur which is easily portable. The validity of the RFB was assessed by comparing the performance of 21 male and 29 female first year studenrs in psychology (M.,. = 19.5, range = 17-25) on the RFB with performance on a large model of the Wirkin (1954) Rod-and-Frame cest. The luminous frame of this appararus was 45.5 cm square. A 43-cm rod could be directly controlled by S by means of a knob which controlled a pulley system. S was seated 120 cm from the frame which was tilted 28 from the vertical to the right. Each S was asked to adjust the rod so that it was completely upright, from 2 initial positions. These were 28 from the vertical to the left and 28 from the vertical to the right. Thus 2 scores, the deviations of the rod from the vertical, were obtained, for each S and on each apparatus. The mean deviation scores on the RFB correlated .74 (Pearsonian product-moment coefficient) with those obtained on the Witkin (1954) Rod-and-Frame cest.