Do ambiguous images provide psychological insights? Testing a popular claim

This seems sketchy in that they're giving themselves N*M opportunities to find significant correlations, which they acknowledge -- but with a bias that a significant correlation is not expected to be spurious if it aligns with a claim previously made elsewhere.

> Some of the additional statistically significant findings (e.g., the perception of Rubin’s Vase and openness, the Horse-Seal and intuitive decision making, and the Duck-Rabbit and extraversion and conscientiousness) appear somewhat isolated, are not related to previous research, or claims being made in social media posts and websites. As such, they may be the result of multiple analyses.

I know there's a body of work on "False Discovery Rate", and I think it would be more appropriate to use some of those tools to directly adjust for the number of attempts they're giving themselves.

I can’t speak to images

But I’ve noticed the way people respond to ambiguous statements reveals a lot about their internal state

(Eg do they assume you’re well-intentioned, assume mal-intent, default to status games, etc)

So I could see the image assessment working in theory if not in application

Anything can provide psychological insight! The primary action is the subject interpreting and responding to something. It doesn't matter what they are engaging with.

I've been watching police interrogation videos, and it's staggering how many people say, unprompted, "It's not like I would just ___", where ___ is exactly what they did and are trying to hide. It's on their mind, so it comes out.

Where it breaks down is when you try to "science" it, and make a blanket rule that applies to all people in all situations.

I see these on Facebook and have avoided them. Isn't the whole point of the "tests" to collect personal data?

I don't know if it's "a new type of psychological myth" so much as a scam.

Tests to determine someone's personality are totally useless, yet they are everywhere. What actionable insight could you even gain.

Isn't this the whole point of Rorschach tests? They are controversial, but still have professional support.

He's my theory: We use backstory to resolve ambiguity.

The ambiguity: "What's this a picture of?"

A possible answer: "a duck"

A backstory that gets us there: "The area colored white is background, and the area colored black is the foreground, and a black area with that shape of edge matches the silhouette of a duck."

Another ambiguity: "Why is the white not foreground?"

A backstory that gets us there: "Paper is white, ink is black, and when I want to draw, I use the ink to draw the duck on the paper."

So can we conclude that any person who answers "duck" got there through this particular backstory? Of course not! There are plenty of alternative paths to this conclusion.

The intention behind any ambiguous expression is lost forever. The choice of backstory will always be arbitrary.

Betteridge's law of headlines applies: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. (If the answer was yes, that would be the headline instead.)

Lack of empirical support does not imply empirical support of no insight. In fact, it seems like you can reasonably draw whatever conclusion you please with about equivalent (zero) evidence. Calling these "myths" seems like a bit of a stretch—perhaps "popular conception" might be more accurate.