psychographs

Noun

psychograph (plural psychographs)

1. One of various graphical representations of a cognitive or psychological profile.
   • The chaplains' psychograph is notable because of the extreme variation in scores; thus on test 4 (opposites) the chaplains achieve a median score which is much higher than that of any other group, whereas on tests 2 (arithmetic) and 6 (number series completion) they fall considerably below the...1921, Bulletin of the National Research Council, page 482
2. A photographic image having a supposed supernatural or spiritual origin.
   • In this article he deals with the still more remarkable impressions, known as "psychographs," which they have obtained on photographic plates without exposing them at all, and which Mr. Lethem claims could only be produced by "spirit" agency.1920, The London - Volume 44, page 443
3. Any of various devices used for automatic writing.
   • A psychograph or a planchette is an apparatus used in spiritistic circles as an instrument for receiving written messages from the spirits of the dead.1971, Kurt E. Koch, Occult Practices and Beliefs, →ISBN, page 94
4. Any of various devices that purportedly read a person's thoughts.
   • The psychograph was a novelty device featured in department stores and theater lobbies during the depression of the 1930s. The machine was used to measure the bumps on an individual's head and, according to the principles of the pseudoscience of phrenology, said to reveal the subject's personality...2005, Micki McGee, Self Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life, →ISBN
5. psychobiography
   • Thus, any attempt to write a biography of McClellan inevitably "devolves into a psychograph."1998, Thomas J. Rowland, George B. McClellan and Civil War History, →ISBN
6. A piece of prose that describes hallucinations or phantoms.
   • For Jolas, the modern poet's function involved a rediscovery of the vertical elements in creation, establishing through art a "Sense of the miraculous" through new forms such as the "anamyth" (a narrative of what he termed "preconscious relationships") and the "psychograph" (a hallucinatory prose...1987, Maria F. Bennett, Unfractioned Idiom: Hart Crane and Modernism, page 175

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