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[The verbal summator] consists of a phonograph or tape recorder which repeats a vague pattern of speech sounds at low intensity or against a noisy background as often as may be needed to evoke a response. The material sounds like fragments of natural speech heard through a wall … Since identifiable sources of strength will not account for the greater part of the forms of response observed in the verbal summator experiment, the rest must be attributed to other variables in the history of the subject. It is precisely in permitting us to infer these variables that the device has clinical use as a “projective test.” (p. 260, 263)