Potential of the projective Colour Association Method to refl ect physiological responses to stimuli with a diff erent emotional charge (PARC study) – a study protocol

Abstract

Measurement of many important psychological concepts, such as health-related quality of life, satisfaction with different types of public and private services, personality, or attitudes, is most often based on various questionnaires. Nevertheless, this method is based on the subjective testimony of an individual about his/ her features, feelings, attitudes, etc. It provides relevant responses only when respondents have well developed introspection, a reason to open up, express themselves, and provide adequate and relevant answers. Projective methods represent an alternative option to measure psychological concepts with the potential reduction of conscious or unconscious bias. The Colour Association Method (CA method) is an advanced projective technique, based on principles of the Luscher colour test and word associations, which uses an objective computer data evaluation and thus overcomes one of the main weaknesses of projective methods. The study aims to investigate the ability of standard questionnaire and CA method to capture the responses of humans to different stimuli with emotional charge. A sample of 101 individuals will be used for this purpose, where each of them will be exposed to 145 different predefined stimuli. Comparison of physiological responses (cerebral blood fl ow, electrical activity of the brain, heart rate variability, and skin conductance response) to these stimuli and the perception of the stimuli measured by the questionnaire and CA method will be performed to determine which method provides a more accurate information on the real perception of the stimuli. These findings may have important consequences for the use of the questionnaire and the CA method to measure different psychological concepts.