This test is built on the real method of Karen Machover (1949), one of the most cited projective techniques in twentieth-century clinical psychology. It follows her original protocol in two ways: a complete human figure, with no time limit. That's where the similarities with a real clinical test end.
Why would a drawing say anything about personality?
Machover's logic: personality expresses itself through the body (how you walk, how you write), and drawing would be an expressive act of the same kind, largely undeliberate. The size of the figure, its placement, or whether you draw hands and feet would carry the same revealing value as your gait. A reasonable-sounding hypothesis at first glance, which is why it was used for decades. Tested against real data, almost none of its specific predictions held up, as you'll see in every indicator below.
How the report works
We don't use artificial intelligence or image recognition to "read" your drawing. We measure directly from the canvas whatever can be measured without understanding what you drew (size, placement, symmetry), and we ask about what does require recognizing content: hands, feet, head, eyes, ears, hair, shoulders, torso, clothing, and erasures (ten short questions). The report connects your specific result to Machover's exact claim for that specific value, not a generic summary.
Example: if your figure takes up more than 60% of the canvas and sits centered, the size indicator will say that Machover linked that to inflated, fantasized self-esteem, and also that this association doesn't hold up in later reviews (Joiner, Schmidt, & Barnett, 1996).
A canvas drawn with a mouse will never capture the nuance of a real pencil stroke, but it does capture magnitudes (size, position, symmetry), which is exactly what we measure. We're not claiming diagnostic precision, and neither does the original test.
Sources
- Machover, K. (1949). Personality Projection in the Drawing of the Human Figure. Charles C. Thomas.
- Kahill, S. (1984). Human figure drawing in adults: An update of the empirical evidence, 1967-1982. Canadian Psychology, 25, 269-292.
- Swenson, C. (1968). Empirical evaluations of human figure drawings. Psychological Bulletin, 54, 431-466.
- Lilienfeld, S. O., Wood, J. M., & Garb, H. N. (2000). The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 1(2), 27-66.
- Chapman, L. J., & Chapman, J. P. (1967). Genesis of popular but erroneous psychodiagnostic observations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 72(3), 193-204.
Frequently asked questions
Is this test a psychological diagnosis?
No, not under any circumstances. Even Machover's original test, applied by a trained clinician, isn't considered a reliable diagnostic tool today. This report is informational: it shows the real method alongside the real scientific evidence about its validity.
Why was it thought that a drawing could say something about personality?
Machover started from an analogy: just as your gait or your handwriting are largely undeliberate expressive acts that reveal something about you, drawing a human figure would be an act of the same kind. It's an intuitive idea, but when tested against real data, the vast majority of its specific predictions didn't hold up.
Why do some indicators say 'not supported' and others 'no specific data'?
They mean different things. 'Not empirically supported' means studies tested that specific claim and it wasn't confirmed. 'No specific data found' means we haven't found a study that tested that exact claim, even though the overall verdict on the method is just as skeptical.
Why does the rounded torso have support when nothing else does?
It's the exception found by Kahill's (1984) review of 30 Machover indices: only 2 held up, and this was one of them. We don't know why this particular sign performed better than the other 28; we're simply reporting what the review found.
Can I retake the test?
Yes, as many times as you want. We don't save your drawing or your previous answers.
Is it free?
Yes, it's completely free: no sign-up or payment needed to take the test and see your result.
How long does the test take? How many questions does it have?
It has no multiple-choice questions: you draw a full human figure and then answer 10 short questions about your drawing. About 4-5 minutes in total.