ern, for the
criticism of the picture shown. The younger the child, the less
adequate, in this sense, is his perceptual familiarity with common
objects. In standardizing a series of "absurd pictures," the writer has
found that normal children of 3 years often see nothing wrong in a
picture which shows a cat with two legs or a hen with four legs. Such
children would, of course, never mistake a cat for a hen. Their trouble
lies in the inability to call up in clear form a "free idea" of a cat or
a hen for comparison with the perceptual presentation offered by the
picture. Middle-grade imbeciles of adult age have much the same
difficulty as normal children of 4 years in recognizing mutilations or
absurdities in pictures of familiar objects.

Binet first placed this test in year VII, changing it to year VIII in
the 1911 revision. In other revisions it has been retained in year VII,
although all the available statistics except Bobertag's warrant its
location in year VI.

VI, 3. COUNTING THIRTEEN PENNIES

PROCEDURE. The procedure is the same as in the test of counting four
pennies (year IV, test 3). If the first response contains only a minor
error, such as the omission of a number in counting, failure to tally
with the finger, etc., a second trial is given.

SCORING. The test is passed if there is _one success in two trials_.
Success requires that the counting should tally with the pointing. It is
not sufficient merely to state the number of pennies without pointing,
for unless the child points and counts aloud we cannot be sure that his
correct answer may not be the joint result of two errors in opposite
directions and equal; for example, if one penny were skipped and
another were counted twice the total result would still be correct, but
the performance would not satisfy the requirements.

REMARKS. Does success in this test depend upon intelligence or upon
schooling? The answer is, intelligence mainly. There are possibly a few
normal 6-year-old children who could not pass the test for lack of
instruction, but children of this age usually have enough spontaneous
interest in numbers to acquire facility in counting as far as 13 without
formal teaching. Certainly, inability to do so by the age of 7 years is
a suspicious sign unless the child's environment has been extraordinarily
unfavorable. On the other hand, feeble-minded adults of the 5-year level
usually have to have a great deal of instruction before they acquire