Google marks Hermann Rorschach's birthday with inkblot doodle

Google has turned its homepage into an interactive space with a black and white doodle featuring the the caricature of the renowned psychoanalyst sitting with a notepad and a pen.

Google has celebrated the 129th birthday of Freudian psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach with a doodle showing his famous inkblot test.

Born on 8 November 1884 in Zurich, Switzerland, Hermann Rorschach was a Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, best known for inventing a projective test known as the Rorschach inkblot test.

He was known to his school friends as Klecks, or 'inkblot' since he enjoyed klecksography, the making of fanciful inkblot 'pictures'. Rorschach went on to make inkblots his life's work.

The inkblot test - or the Rorschach test - is a psychological test using which a person's interpretations of inkblots are recorded and assessed through psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. The test is used by psychologists to analyse a person's personality traits and emotional functioning. It's also used for detecting underlying thought disorders, especially when individuals are hesitant to talk about their thinking processes openly.

Google has turned its homepage into an interactive space with a black and white doodle featuring the the caricature of the renowned psychoanalyst sitting with a notepad and a pen.

It also features different inkblot patterns that can be browsed by clicking on them or on the navigation array keys. It also features a 'share what you see button' that allows you to share your interpretation of the inkblot on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

After many years of research, Rorschach wrote a book called by the name of Psychodiagnostik in 1921, which is said to be the basis of the inkblot test. He studied and researched 300 mental patients and 100 control subjects for the book.

It is said that after experimenting with several hundred inkblots, Rorschach shortlisted a set of ten for their diagnostic value.

This is the search giant's third doodle in a week -- other being doodle for the 'Human Computer' Shakuntala Devi on Monday and Nobel laureate physicist CV Raman on Thursday.

Video: Google's interactive doodle on the famous inkblot test