Embodied Mentalization – The Case of Human Movement in the Rorschach

Abstract: Human movement responses (M) to the Rorschach Test have been retained in all coding systems and captivated clinicians and researchers for over a century. M seems to rest both in the card and in the subject and neither completely in the blot nor in the mind. Neurobiological and clinical studies as well as meta-analytic evidence show that M is not a one-dimensional code only but a complex, multidetermined class of neuropsychological mechanisms embedding constructs such as the mirror neuron system, embodied cognition, mentalization, and referential activity. The recent generative predictive model of perception offers a new angle for conceiving M as an affordance that is balanced between high precision of the sensory signal (perceptual processing of blot features) and stored knowledge or internal mental images of self and others (priors). Within this conceptual framework, this study suggests a novel perspective for M based on the four gradients of levels of embodied mentalization, M frequency, M complexity, and level of reality testing.