ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Holtzman inkblot technique

Imagine you're doing art with your teacher and they show you an inkblot on a piece of paper. It looks like a big, black blob. Now, your teacher asks you to tell them what you see in the inkblot. Do you see a butterfly, a monster, or a house?

The Holtzman inkblot technique is kind of like playing this game of seeing things in the inkblot. It's a test that psychologists use to learn more about how people's minds work.

During the test, a person looks at a series of inkblot pictures and has to say what they see. The psychologist doesn't care if you see the same thing they do. Instead, they want to know about how you interpret the image and how that might be related to your personality.

By looking at what people see in the inkblots, psychologists can learn about how people's brains work, what thoughts they have, and how they might approach problems. It helps them understand how different people think and feel.

So, even though it might seem like a fun game, the Holtzman inkblot technique is actually a serious way for psychologists to learn about how people think and feel.