Reply to R. Isaac & P. Brutsche

In science we create hypotheses in order to test them. While it may appear to Rhoda Isaac and Paul Brutsche that we have ‘disfigured’ or ‘distorted’ the symbolic meaning of the four quadrants used in Jungian picture interpretation, that was not the case. In fact, we thought Jung's basic theory involving the quadrants would be supported. If there is truth to the theory, then it ought to hold up to scientific investigation. It is a common method in scientific research to isolate components of a theory and test individual hypotheses in succession, with the intent of ultimately building a comprehensive set of empirical evidence. Hence, we yield to the scientific results of our research. Our study (Bergeron, D. P., Rosen, D. H., Arnau, R. C. & Mascaro, N. ‘Picture interpretation and Jungian typology’,  J. Anal. Psychol., 2003,  48, 1,  83-99)↗ was a first attempt at empirically studying this issue and we had to operationalize the constructs. Perhaps future research could improve on the terms used to delineate the constructs. However, it is noteworthy that a cross- cultural study (Yuanhong, J., Sakaki, T. & Rosen, D. ‘A Symbolic Meaning of Space Domain in Jungian Picture Interpretation’. Paper accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, Hawaii. August, 2004) done in Japan, also with undergraduates, also utilized the same operational definitions as our original study, but employed only a space domain test and not the additional colour associative test. These researchers found results that were very different from, but complementary to, those of the original study. The original research, only in the space domain test, affirmed one of four quadrants: the unconscious— lower left quadrant. The Japanese study affirmed three out of four quadrants: only the lower right quadrant (mother space domain) was not affirmed. Thus, the cumulative scientific research—from both studies—suggests that there is cross-cultural evidence (withi