Development of Picture Drawing Test to Assess Consciousness Layers of Tribal Children of Tripura

Page No 21-25

Debdulal Dutta Roy
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

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Drawing is the journey from outer layer to inner core of human mind. In describing Psychic
experience, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gave importance on three layers of Consciousness

• the outer, inner and inner core. The outer layer is composed of individual percepts. Inner layer
  can be understood by one’s feeling to the object and the inner core includes some qualities
  transmitted through heredity. The inner core attributes are eternal. Objective of this study was
  to examine the outer, inner and inner core layers of consciousness of the tribal children in
  Tripura by developing picture drawing test. Data were collected from 50 tribal children of grades
  III and IV living in the remote villages of Tripura wherein hit and run guerrilla attack was common.
  Children were asked to draw any picture on the given sheet of paper as nice as possible. A set
  of attributes was conceptualized to study various outer (missing important parts, anomalies),
  inner (vividness, orderliness, complexity) and the inner core (harmony with environment,
  cleanliness, aesthetic) layers of consciousness. A binary type scoring categories was developed
  to assess above attributes of their drawings through the judges. Judges were psychologists
  with experience in children art. Judges’ scores were converted into T-scores. The three layers
  were positively correlated with each other in a significant manner. Results revealed little distortion
  of outer layer and poor organization of inner and inner core layers of consciousness among the
  tribal children. Zero order correlation among the three layers suggest that outer layer was
  correlated more with the inner and inner core layers. Results provide a new paradigm to study
  postulates of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on consciousness using unbounded picture drawing
  test