JONAH LEHRER

THE BLOG ABOUT

The Draw-A-Person Test

SEPTEMBER 02, 2014

Imagine a world where intelligence is measured like this:

A child sits down at a desk. She is given a piece of paper and a crayon. Then, she is asked to draw a
picture of a boy or girl. “Do the best that you can,” she is told. “Make sure that you draw all of him or
her.” If the child hesitates, or asks for help, she is gently encouraged: “You draw it all on your own, and
I’ll watch you. Draw the picture any way you like, just do the best picture you can.”

When the child is done drawing, the picture is scored. It’s a simple process, with little ambiguity. One
point is awarded for the “presence and correct quantity” of various body parts, such as head, eyes,
mouth, ears, arms and feet. (Clothing gets another point.) The prettiness of the picture is irrelevant. Here
are six drawings from four-year olds:

The Draw-A-Person test was originally developed by Florence Goodenough, a psychologist at the
University of Minnesota. Based on her work with Lewis Terman – she helped revise and validate the
Stanford-Binet I.Q. test – Goodenough became interested in coming up with a new measure of
intelligence that could be given to younger children. And so, in 1926, she published a short book called
The Measurement of Intelligence by Drawings which described the Draw-A-Person test.* Although the
test only takes a few minutes, Goodenough argued that it provided a window into the child mind, and
that “the nature and content of children’s drawings are dependent primarily upon intellectual
development.” In other words, those scrawls and scribbles were not meaningless marks. Rather, they
reflected something fundamental about the ways in which we made sense of the world. The act of
expression was an act of intelligence, and should be treated as such.

In her book, Goodenough described the obvious benefits of her intelligence test. It was fast, cheap and
fun. What’s more, it seemed to be measuring something real, as children tended to generate a consistent
set of scores over time. (In other words, the test was reliable.) And yet, despite these advantages, the
Draw-A-Person test largely fell out of favor by the 1970s. One explanation is that it was lumped in with
other “projective” techniques, such as the Rorschach Test, that were repeatedly shown to be inaccurate,
too tangled up with psychoanalytic speculation.

However, a new study by Rosalind Arden and colleagues at King’s College London suggests that
Goodenough’s test still has its uses, and that it manages to quantify something important about the
developing mind in less than ten minutes. “Goodenough’s genius was to take a common childhood
product and see its potential as an indicator of cognitive ability,” they write. “Our data show that the
capacity to realize on paper the salient features of a person, in a schema, is an intelligent behavior at age
4. Performance of this drawing task relies on various cognitive, motoric, perceptual, attentional, and
motivational capacities.”

How’d the scientists show this? By giving the test to 7,752 pairs of British twins, the scientists were able
to compare the drawing performance of identical twins, who share all of their genetic material, with that
of non-identical twins, who only share about half. This allowed them to tease out the relative importance
of genetics in determining scores on the Draw-A-Person test. (All of the twin pairs were raised in the
same household, at least until age 4, so they presumably had a similar home environment.) The results
were interesting, as the drawings of identical twins were much more similar than those of non-identical
twins. There is no drawing gene, of course, but this result does suggest that the sketches of little kids are
shaped by their genetic inheritance. In fact, the results from a single drawing were as heritable among
the twin pairs as their scores on more traditional intelligence tests.

Furthermore, because the researchers had scores from these intelligence tests they were able to
compare performance on the Draw-A-Person test with a subject’s g factor, or general intelligence. The
correlations were statistically significant but relatively modest, which is in line with previous studies. This
means that one shouldn’t try to predict IQ scores based on the scribbles of a toddler; the two variables
are related, but in weak ways.

However, a more interesting result emerged over time, as the scientists looked at the relationship
between drawing scores at the age of 4 and measures of intelligence a decade later, when the twins
were 14. According to the data, the children’s pictures were just as predictive of their intelligence scores
at the age of 14 as various intelligence tests given at the age of 4. "This study does not explain artistic
talent,” write the scientists. “But our results do show that whatever conflicting theories adults have about
the value of verisimilitude in early figure drawing, children who express it to a greater extent are
somewhat brighter than those who do not."

Such studies trigger a predictable reaction in parents. I've got a three-year old daughter - I couldn't help
but inspect her latest drawings, counting up the body parts. (There's even an app that will help you make
an assessment.) But it's important to note that this is all nonsense; the science does not support my
anxieties. "I too fossicked around in old drawers to look for body-parts among the fridge-magnet scrawls
of my former 4-year old," Dr. Arden wrote in an email. "I realised quickly the key question was not 'is she
bright?', but 'did we have fun? Did I treasure that wonderful, lightspeed flashing childhood properly?'" In
a recent article put out by King's College, Arden expands on this idea, observing that while her "findings
are interesting, it does not mean that parents should worry if their child draws badly. Drawing ability does
not determine intelligence, there are countless factors, both genetic and environmental, which affect
intelligence in later life.”

I find this study most interesting as a history-of-science counter factual, a reminder that there are
countless ways to measure human intelligence, whatever that is. We've settled on a particular concept of
intelligence defined by a short list of measurable mental talents. (Modern IQ tests tend to focus on
abilities such as mental control, processing speed and quantitative reasoning.) But Goodenough’s tool is
proof that the mystery of smarts has no single solution. The IQ test could have been a drawing test.

This sounds like a silly conjecture. But it shouldn’t. As the scientists note, figurative art is an ancient skill.
Before there were written alphabets, or counting systems, humans were drawing on the walls of caves.
(There’s evidence that children participated in these rituals as well, dragging their tiny fingers through the
wet clay and soft cave walls.) "This long history endows the drawing test with ecological validity and
relevance to an extent that is unusual in psychometrics," write the scientists. After all, the Make-A-
Person test measures one of the most uniquely human talents there is: the ability to express the mind on
the page, to re-describe the world until life becomes art, or at least a crayon stick figure.

*Goodenough originally called it the Draw-A-Man test, but later realized that the gendered description
made it harder for young girls.

Arden, Rosalind, et al. "Genes Influence Young Children’s Human Figure Drawings and Their Association
With Intelligence a Decade Later." Psychological Science (2014)

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Comments (17) Newest First

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Karen Lyon 2 years ago · 0 Likes

I teach young children, and I just use it as a rough -- very rough! -- assessment of where they are
cognitively/emotionally when they start school in my Transitional Kindergarten class. It's not a
evaluation of their intelligence, just of some their abilities to represent their thinking. I have a
student who will be 5 years old in November of this year (2019). He can draw a head -- two eyes,
a mouth, and a nose, but no body at all. Which tells me there are some connections he hasn't
made yet, some developmental skills that need to be strengthened. Watching his behavior in
class, this is not a surprise, can I tell you? Yet, he is already reading -- fluently! So he is very
intelligent -- just at a different place socially or emotionally. Getting validation or indications like
this help me to plan goals for those students so that all of them are ready for kindergarten.

H 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Yeah....ok. This seems like a fun activity, but you can hardly call this science.

Jerod 3 years ago · 0 Likes

On the other hand, the depth and detail with which the autistic savant may be able to replicate
scenery by memory is both evidence for and against higher intellectual capacities.

Jerod 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I took this test in the late 80's (89?) under Dr. Robert Lynch. He (they) correctly analysed its
depressed quality, its supressed and small features. At that point they didn't realize that I was
seriously abused and suicidal but decided based upon it and other examinations that I needed
further examination. They were right. It may not have quite as broad an application as Dr.
Goodenough hoped, but it was very helpful in my case.

Angela Garreffa 4 years ago · 0 Likes

I was tested in the late 70s because of my drawings. I was in the first grade and was taken to the
city and was given many test like the ink blot and peg tests and hearing tests. Many of these test I
read above were faulty and at 53 I'm a lot smarter than I was given credit for in school.

Michelle 4 years ago · 0 Likes

I have two gifted sons who were tested at young ages and determined as such. One drew
amazingly detailed figures as a young child, the other did not. However, both are intellectually
gifted in their own ways. As an Art Therapist, I believe this is a good tool to assess a child's
awareness of themselves, their own physical form, and possibly have links to their intellectual
abilities.

Annie 4 years ago · 0 Likes

This is not a measure of intelligence, nor should it be used as a substitute for validated
intelligence measures. Drawing is a skill, capable of being improved through practice, intelligence
or G is not subject to the range of fluctuations that this test is. There is considerable evidence that
this test is a quick bypass for the actual slog of testing and assessing children or people properly
Unfortunatley usage of art and drawing by psychological science has been to quantify creativity,
as a measurable unit which has then been used with correlational data to support hypothesis.
Look at the numbers on her studies? With a sample size like that how can you not expect
correlations?

waqar zaman 4 years ago · 0 Likes

hi r u a psychologist

tiffany 5 years ago · 0 Likes

please help me get a scale to measure aggression level in intellectually disabled students

tiffany 5 years ago · 0 Likes

is it possible to test level of aggression with this???

Penelopie clearwater 5 years ago · 0 Likes

Wheres the actual test?

AG 5 years ago · 1 Like

My very rough conclusion from this: there well could be a correlation between good, detailed
drawings and higher intelligence. Yet there is no correlation between lesser drawings and LOWER
intelligence. As we see with adults, there is a very wide range of skill in art, and plenty of very
bright people simply cannot draw well. A friend of mine who read voraciously and easily obtained
her Masters in Library Science could barely draw simple shapes.

An interesting test, for sure, if mostly to get a glimpse of how small children think and see the
world around themselves!

CJR 5 years ago · 0 Likes

Look at Robinson, 2011; A Validity Study of Children's Projective Drawings

Ann 6 years ago · 0 Likes

HFD tests have repeatedly been shown to assess nothing, they correlate moderately with IQ on
huge samples and are useless at predicting individual ability, See Imuta et al and Wilcox et al

Kamran 6 years ago · 0 Likes

who made it and how to play it

R. Allen 7 years ago · 0 Likes

Draw-a-test's correlation to "intelligence" as measured by various intelligence tests is minimal at

best. My imagination of this world is one where I am deemed a hopeless and floundering idiot due
to the violent butcherings of simply stick figure renditions during my most active period of 5-9
years old.

Mark W 7 years ago · 0 Likes

As always, a great read. One wonders if there are/were tests that used other sensory
performances to gauge intelligence. Is there a hearing test from which one's ability to tease out
the numerous sounds a sign of intelligence. I suppose all of these tests have common features:
one's ability to think critically and "draw" refined conclusions suggests a higher level of thinking.