Read the sample dialogue below. This is an excerpt from an article about the test.

Try to follow this example when giving the test. Do not try to get the subject to identify the same things as in the example. Just let the subject describe what they see. Prompt them for details as in the example. Asking the subject to count the stripes is probably a little extreme. Other examples of details might do as well.

Keep the copy (in this file) of the picture for reference, if you run out of prompting questions. But do not look at the picture all the time -- you may end up "coaching" the subject by slight intonations in your voice that give away what you see in the picture. For the most part, let the subject start -- then ask for details.

Also do this: When the subject identifies clearly some specific part of the picture, like the cat's face, have the subject circle it on the screen.

Do this with other parts of the picture if you are inclined and the subject seems confident of these locations. Do not ask the subject to guess the location.

Sample dialog and picture:

An example taken directly from a tape recording) of a report of an eidetic image. Not all eidetic reports are like this one; on the other hand, it is not atypical. The subject, a lO-year-old boy, was. seated before a blank easel from which a picture from Alice in Wondedand had just been removed.

Experimenter: Do you see something there?

Subject: I see the tree, gray tree with three limbs. I see the cat with stripes

around its tail.

Experimenter: Can you count those stripes?

Subject: Yes (pause). There's about 16.

Experimenter: You're counting what? Black, white or both?

Subject: Both.

Experimenter: Tell me what else you see.

Subject: And I can see the flowers on the bottom. There's about three stems, but you can see two pairs of flowers. One on the right has green leaves, red flower on bottom with yellow on top. And I can see the girl with a green dress. She's got blonde hair and a red hair band and there are some leaves in the upper left-hand corner where the tree is.

Experimenter: Can you tell me about the roots of the tree?

Subject: Well, there's two of them going down here (points) and there's one that cuts off on the left-hand side of the picture.

Experimenter: What is the cat doing with its paws?

Subject: Well, one of them he's holding out and the other one is on the tree.

Experimenter: What color is the sky? Subject: Can't tell.

Experimenter: Can't tell at all? Subject: No. I can see the yellowish ground, though.

Experimenter: Tell me if any of the parts go away or change at all as I'm talking to you. What color is the girl's dress?

Subject: Green. It has some white on it.

Experimenter: How about her legs and feet?

 (The subject looks away from the easel and then back again.)

Experimenter: Is the image gone?

Subject: Yes, except for the tree.

Experimenter: Tell me when it goes

away. .

Subject: (pause) It went away.

The fact that only about 5 percent of the children reported images as prolonged and vivid as this one raised our immediate concern about the validity of eidetic imagery. How could it shrink in frequency so much in the 35 years since the early investigations? Perhaps it did not exist at all. The children might be faking or be strongly suggestible, giving us answers we led them to expect we want. Or dren are describing their imagery when tIiey are only telling us about their vivid memories? All of these have been difficult questions to answer or even to investigate. Furthermore, some of the most convincing evidence in support of

visual images comes not from experiments but from incidental observations or comments made by the children that suggest the visual characteristics rather than the memory characteristics of the reports.