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Psychological
testing and
assessment
Second Edition

David Shum
John O’Gorman
Brett Myors
Peter Creed
vi Contents

Binet’s revolution 149

Spearman and ‘g’ 150
Terman and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale 151
Wechsler scales 152
Thurstone and multiple mental abilities 154
Guilford: A different structure of intelligence 154
Vernon’s hierarchical view of intelligence 155
Cattell’s two-factor theory of intelligence 156
Cattell, Horn and Carroll extend the ‘Gf-Gc’ model of intelligence 157
The Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence 159
The CHC model and modern tests of intelligence 159
A developmental conception of intelligence 162
An information-processing view of intelligence 163
Gardner and multiple intelligences 164
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence 165
So, ‘what is intelligence?’ 166
Aptitude versus achievement tests 166
Group (rather than individual) testing 167
Group differences in intelligence 168
Chapter summary 171
Other key terms 172
Questions172
Further reading 172
Useful websites 172

8 Personality and Individual Differences 173

Introduction174
The psychoanalytic approach 174
The interpersonal approach 177
The personological approach 180
The multivariate (trait) approach 182
The empirical approach 186
The social-cognitive approach 189
Positive psychology 191
Chapter summary 194
Other key terms 194
Questions195
 Contents vii

Further reading 195

Useful websites 195

Part 4 Areas of Professional Application 197

9 Clinical and Mental Health Testing and Assessment 199

Introduction200
Clarifying the referral question 200
Case history data 201
Clinical interview 201
Mental status examination 202
Psychological tests 204
Psychological report 216
Chapter summary 221
Other key terms 222
Questions222
Further reading 222
Useful websites 222

10 Organisational Testing and Assessment 223

Introduction224
Performance appraisal 225
Theories of performance 230
Personnel selection 231
Selection as a social process 237
Some tests used in selection 239
Work attitudes 241
Chapter summary 243
Other key terms 244
Questions244
Further reading 244
Useful websites 244

11 Neuropsychological Testing and Assessment 245

Introduction246
What is clinical neuropsychology? 249
A brief history of neuropsychological assessment 250
What is neuropsychological assessment? 252
viii Contents

Purposes and procedures of neuropsychological assessment 252

Neuropsychological functions commonly assessed 253
Chapter summary 265
Other key terms 265
Questions265
Further reading 265
Useful websites 266

12 Forensic Psychological Testing and Assessment 267

Introduction268
Forensic psychology and forensic psychological testing and assessment 268
Settings of forensic assessment 270
Differences between forensic and therapeutic assessment 271
Psychological tests and assessment techniques commonly used in forensic assessment 273
Limitations of forensic assessment 279
Chapter summary 281
Questions282
Further reading 282
Useful websites 282

13 Educational Testing and Assessment 283

Introduction284
Role of assessment in education 285
Aptitude tests 288
General achievement tests 294
Applications of achievement and aptitude tests 296
Vocational interests 298
Strong vocational interest inventory 302
Chapter summary 304
Questions304
Further reading 305
Useful websites 305

Part 5 Prospects and Issues 307

14 The Future of Testing and Assessment 309

Introduction310
Content developments 310
 Contents ix

Technical and methodological developments 311

Contextual changes 318
Chapter summary 319
Questions319
Further reading 320
Useful websites 320

1 Answers to Exercises 321

1 Glossary326

1 References338

1 Index368
 Figures and Tables

List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Imperial examination in China 6
Figure 1.2 Group testing of American army recruits during the First World War 7
Figure 1.3 Drawing of migrants embarking from a ship, circa 1885 11
Figure 1.4 Sample passages of the dictation test used in 1925 12
Figure 2.1 Relationship between psychological assessment and psychological testing 22
Figure 2.2 Psychological testing: self-report versus performance 23
Figure 3.1 Plotting the raw scores in our example with the transformed scores 48
Figure 3.2 Percentage of cases below z of +1 in a normal distribution 51
Figure 3.3 Relationships among linear and nonlinear raw score transformations 66
Figure 6.1 Steps in test construction 122
Figure 6.2 Types of measurement 125
Figure 6.3 Empirical trace lines for two items from a (fictitious)
test of general mental ability 127
Figure 6.4 Possible measurement models 128
Figure 6.5 Three parameters of a trace line 130
Figure 6.6 Examples of curves with different parameters 130
Figure 6.7 Examples of item formats 133
Figure 7.1 Alfred Binet (1857–1911) 149
Figure 7.2 Charles Spearman (1863–1945) 150
Figure 7.3 Spearman’s theory of ‘g’ and ‘s’ 151
Figure 7.4 Lewis Terman (1857–1956) 151
Figure 7.5 David Wechsler (1896–1981) 152
Figure 7.6 Louis Thurstone (1887–1955) 154
Figure 7.7 Thurstone’s model of primary mental abilities 154
Figure 7.8 JP Guildford (1897–1987) 154
Figure 7.9 Guilford’s model of intelligence 155
x
 Figures and Tables xi

Figure 7.10 Philip Vernon (1905–1987) 155

Figure 7.11 Vernon’s hierarchical model of intelligence 156
Figure 7.12 Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) 156
Figure 7.13 The CHC model of intelligence 160
Figure 7.14 The fluid–crystallised dimension 167
Figure 8.1 An example of a blot similar to that used in the Rorschach 176
Figure 8.2 Example of an interpersonal circumplex 179
Figure 8.3 Intensity (left figure) and clustering (right figure) of behavioural dispositions
can be represented in the circumplex 179
Figure 8.4 The structure of personality 185
Figure 9.1 Structure of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Fourth Edition 205
Figure 9.2 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–Second Edition (MMPI–2)
profile form211
Figure 10.1 The Validity Generalisation League Table 233
Figure 11.1 Midsagittal section of the human brain showing structures and locations
of the brain stem and midbrain 247
Figure 11.2 Structures and location of the between brain (inside view) 247
Figure 11.3 The four lobes of the forebrain 248
Figure 11.4 Structures and location of the basal ganglia (inside view) 248
Figure 11.5 Structures and location of the limbic system (inside view) 248
Figure 11.6 A neuropsychological model of human memory 257
Figure 11.7 Subtests and indices of the Weschler memory Scale-Fourth Edition 259
Figure 11.8 A simulated example of a Hooper Visual Organisation Test item 261
Figure 13.1 Structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fourth Edition,
supplemental subtests shown in italics 292
Figure 13.2 The hexagonal model 301
Figure 13.3 The circumplex structure of vocational interests 302

List of Tables
Table 2.1 Name, address, and website of major test suppliers in Australia 25
Table 2.2 User levels used by Psychological Corporation, Australia and New Zealand
in supplying test materials 26
Table 2.3 General principles and ethical standards of the Australian
Psychological Society 35
Table 3.1 Calculating z scores from raw scores 50
Table 3.2 Area under the standard normal distribution 52
Table 3.3 Equal differences in z scores do not mean equal differences in percentiles 65
Table 3.4 Percentile ranges corresponding to stanine scores 66
xii Figures and Tables

Table 3.5 Bartram and Lindley’s recommendations for sample sizes for purposes of
test norming72
Table 3.6 Some examples of sampling methods and sample sizes for widely used
psychological tests 72
Table 4.1 Calculating Cronbach’s alpha for a five-item test 82
Table 4.2 Calculating Cronbach’s alpha for another five-item test 83
Table 6.1 Comparison of CTT and IRT statistics for item analysis 136
Table 6.2 Fictitious item data for a five-item test each with four options
administered to ten individuals 137
Table 6.3 Corrected and uncorrected item-total correlations for the data in Table 6.2 138
Table 7.1 Broad (Stratum II) abilities assessed by the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale 162
Table 8.1 The Five-Factor Model (FFM) 184
Table 8.2 The person variables identified by Walter Mischel 189
Table 8.3 Concepts and methods in personality assessment based on McAdams’
possible levels of knowing another person 193
Table 9.1 Subtests of the WAIS–IV 206
Table 9.2 Reliability of the WAIS–IV 208
Table 9.3 Sample items of the DASS 215
Table 10.1 Some performance indicators 225
Table 10.2 A behaviourally anchored rating scale for the role of customer
service operator 228
Table 10.3 Some examples of the behavioural observation scale 229
Table 10.4 Typical speed and accuracy test items 240
Table 11.1 Subtests of the WMS–IV 258
Table 11.2 Descriptions of tasks and functions measured by the nine subtests of
the D-KEFS 262
Table 12.1 Differences between forensic and therapeutic assessment 271
Table 12.2 Examples of commonly used risk assessment tools 275
Table 13.1 Subtests of the WISC–IV 289
Table 13.2 Reliability of the WISC–IV 291
Table 13.3 Reliability of standard progressive matrices: Australian edition 293
Table 13.4 WIAT–II composites and subtests 295
Table 13.5 Reliability of the WIAT–II 296
Preface

We were greatly encouraged by the positive response to the first edition of Psychological Testing and
Assessment and pleased when the publisher invited us to prepare a second edition. This gave us the
opportunity to update the work, to expand on areas that deserved a fuller treatment than we had
provided in the first edition and to take into consideration the feedback provided by colleagues and
readers. Given the dynamic and evolving nature of the field of psychological testing and assessment,
we believe that it is important and useful to regularly update the content and discussion.
In this second edition we have added two new chapters—one on intelligence and one on
personality—to provide a broader background to two substantive areas of research and theory that
are essential to psychological testing and assessment. We have expanded the coverage of cultural
differences and included a new section on factor analysis. The former is important because most
of the countries where the book will be read include people from many cultural backgrounds and
these differences influence the choice, administration and interpretation of tests and other assessment
devices. Factor analysis continues to be a major tool used by test developers in constructing and
analysing psychological tests, and some familiarity with it is necessary to make sense of the judgments
that are made about the validity of tests for particular purposes.
As well as adding new material, we have expanded the treatment of some of the topics covered
in the previous edition. In the chapter on test construction, for example, we have expanded the
discussion of item response theory (IRT) that is increasingly being used by test developers, and
have added to the section on item writing by outlining the salient principles followed in this
critical aspect of test construction. We also have extended the material included in the applied
chapters. For example, the testing in organisations chapter now includes a section on assessing work
attitudes covering job satisfaction, organisational commitment and perceptions of organisational
justice. The educational testing chapter now includes sections on the international (PISA) and
Australia-wide testing (NAPLAN) of school children, and what teachers need to know about
assessment procedures. Because new editions of some psychological tests have been published since
our last edition, we have also updated the description of these tests and for some areas we have
included new tests that were not in the first edition.
In this second edition, we have also included a number of new features to enhance learning and
understanding. These include a list of learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter, a list of
glossary terms at the end of the book and five practitioner profiles for each of the five professional
chapters.

xiii
xiv Preface

We trust these changes have added to the value of the book as an introduction to the art and
science of psychological testing and assessment, without limiting its accessibility to a wide audience
of students. Some subject areas are more difficult than others, but in writing this book we want
students to be aware of all the issues that bear on the use of tests and the formulation of assessments.
Many topics require a fuller treatment for their mastery than is possible in an introductory text
and we encourage students to seek that fuller treatment to expand their overview of the field. The
references, additional readings and websites included at the end of each chapter will assist students
in this task.
Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the staff at Oxford University Press involved in the preparation of
this second edition for their assistance, which has materially improved our contribution.
In particular, we would like to thank the copyeditor, Pete Cruttenden. We thank Allana Canty,
James Ogilvie and Mitchell Shepherd for helping us with researching and preparing materials for
this new edition. Many thanks also go to the following contributors for sharing their practitioner
profiles in Part 4: Professor Amanda Gordon, Dr Elizabeth Allworth, Dr Jan Ewing, Dr Danielle
Schumack and Associate Professor Tim Hannan.
The author and the publisher wish to thank the following copyright holders for reproduction
of their material.
Figure 1.2: Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures; Figure 2.2: Shutterstock.com; David Weschler:
U.S. National Library of Medicine; B026174. Courtesy Light, LLC; Raymond Cattell: Cattell
Family; Louis Thurstone: Courtesy National Academy of Sciences; JP Guilford: University of
Southern California; Philip Vernon: Courtesy Pioneerfund.org. Every effort has been made to trace
the original source of copyright material contained in this book. The publisher will be pleased to
hear from copyright holders to rectify any errors or omissions.

xv
xvi
 The Context of
Psychological Testing
and Assessment

Part 1
 Psychological Tests:
What Are They and Why
Do We Need Them?

Key terms
criterion-referenced test

1
norm-referenced test
objective procedure
psychological test
psychometric properties
test obsolescence

Chapter objectives
By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
1 explain how psychological tests have developed over time
2 define what a psychological test is and explain its defining
characteristics
3 explain how psychological tests are better than other means used to
assist people to understand behaviour and to make decisions
4 explain the advantages and limitations of psychological tests.

3
4 PART 1 The Context of Psychological Testing and Assessment

Setting the scene

• The Chairperson of Air New Zealand was reported as insisting members of his board were to
undergo psychological testing as part of the selection process. (New Zealand Herald, 22 January 2002)
• The Medical Board of Australia released new guidelines that require children who want to undergo
cosmetic surgery, but who don’t have a medical justification, to undergo mandatory psychological
assessment. (Sunday Mail, 1 April 2012)
• A leading psychologist called for mandatory psychological testing of young drivers to ensure that
their brains are ‘mature’ enough to be granted driving licences. (Herald Sun, 14 February 2010)
• Staff in Australian Football League (AFL) clubs used results of neuropsychological tests to determine
when players who had suffered concussion should play for the team again. (Herald Sun, 22 July 2003)

Introduction
The development and application of psychological tests is considered one of the major
achievements of psychologists in the last century (Zimbardo, 2004).The news items above illustrate
some of the ways psychological tests have been applied in our societies. For the most part, tests are
used to assist in making decisions or promoting self-understanding by providing more accurate
information about human behaviour than is available without them. Psychological tests are also
important tools for conducting psychological research. In this book our focus is on the former
rather than the latter application.
The ability to select, administer, score and interpret psychological tests is considered a core skill for
professional psychologists (Australian Psychology Accreditation Council, 2010).Thus, the teaching of
this ability is usually included as one or more courses for undergraduate and postgraduate psychology
programs in Australia and other countries. Who developed the first psychological test and how has
psychological testing progressed through time? What are the advantages of using psychological tests
to promote understanding and to assist decision-making processes about people in our society?
What are psychological tests and what are their defining characteristics? What are the advantages and
limitations of psychological tests? These are the topics of the first chapter of this book.

A brief history of psychological testing

The history of psychological testing has been well documented by DuBois (1970), O’Neil (1987),
Keats and Keats (1988) and Ord (1977) have provided accounts of relevant developments in
Australia. The following section draws freely on these sources (Box 1.1 highlights some of these
historical developments).

Box 1.1
Timeline of major developments in the history of psychological testing
1890 The term ‘mental test’ is first used by James McKeen Cattell
1905 Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon devise the first test of intelligence for use with children
1916 Lewis Terman publishes the Stanford-Binet test, based on the pioneering work of Binet and Simon
1917 Robert Yerkes leads the development of the Army Alpha and Beta tests for selection for military
­service in the USA
 Chapter 1 Psychological Tests 5

1917 Robert Woodworth devises the first self-report test of personality

1921 Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, publishes Psychodiagnostics on the
use of inkblots in evaluating personality
1927 The first version of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank is published
1938 Oscar Buros publishes the first compendium of psychological tests, the Mental Measurements
Yearbook
1939 David Wechsler reports an individual test of adult intelligence
1942 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is published to assist the differential
­diagnosis of psychiatric disorder
1948 Henry Murray and colleagues publish Assessment of Men and the term ‘assessment’ comes to
replace mental testing as a description of work with psychological tests
1957 Raymond Cattell publishes on performance tests of motivation
1962 Computer interpretation of the MMPI is introduced
1968 Walter Mischel publishes his widely cited critique of personality assessment
1970 Computers are used for testing clients; computerised adaptive testing follows
1971 The Federal Court in the USA challenges testing for personnel selection
1985 Publication in the USA of the first edition of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
1988 Jay Ziskin and David Faust challenge the use of psychological test results in court
1993 The American Psychological Association publishes guidelines for computer-based testing
and interpretation
1993 John Carroll publishes Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies, in which he
proposes his three-stratum theory of intelligence
1999 Publication of the second edition of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
2001 Gregory Meyer and colleagues publish the results of a review of 125 earlier literature reviews
­indicating the value of psychological tests
Source: Based on a more extensive timeline in Sundberg (1977).

The origins of psychological testing can be found in the public service examinations used
by Chinese dynasties to select those who would work for them. These were large-scale exercises
involving many applicants and several days of testing, and from the era of the Han dynasty involved
written examinations (Bowman, 1989). Programs of testing were conducted from about 2000 bce
to the early years of the twentieth century when they were discontinued, at about the time the
modern era of psychological testing was being introduced in the USA. A major impetus to this
modern development of testing was the need to select men for military service when the USA
entered the First World War without a standing army. There were, however, a number of precursors
to this development, the most significant being the work of Alfred Binet (1857–1911) and his
colleagues in France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Binet was asked by the Office of Public Instruction in Paris to provide a method for objectively
determining which children would benefit from special education. In responding to this request,
Binet devised the first of the modern intelligence tests, using problems not unlike those covered in
6 PART 1 The Context of Psychological Testing and Assessment

Figure 1.1 Imperial examination in China

a normal school program. In the process, he proposed a method for quantifying intelligence in terms
of the concept of mental age; that is, the child’s standing among children of different chronological
ages in terms of his or her cognitive capacity. For example, a child whose knowledge and problem-
solving ability was similar to that of the average 10 year old was described as having a mental age
of 10 years. The child’s chronological age may be in advance or behind that. Binet showed how
a test of intelligence might be validated by comparing the test performance of older with younger
children, or the performance of those considered bright by their teachers with those considered
dull. Given our understanding of ability, older children should do better than younger children
on a test purporting to be a test of intelligence, and bright children should perform better than
dull children. Determining the appropriate content, finding a unit of measurement and specifying
methods for validating tests of this sort were all significant achievements, with the result that Binet is
often thought of as the originator of psychological testing. Binet himself may not have been entirely
pleased with this honour, because he was more concerned with the remediation of difficulties than
with the classification process that has preoccupied many who adopted his procedures.
The assumption implicit in Binet’s work—that performance on a range of apparently different
problems can be aggregated to yield an overall estimate of, in his terms, mental age—was examined
by Charles Spearman (1863–1945) in the UK in a series of investigations that yielded the first
theory of intelligence. This theory proposed that there was something common to all tests of
cognitive abilities: g in Spearman’s terms. This proposal was to be sharply criticised by a number of
American researchers, chief among them Thurstone.
The theoretical arguments did not deter a number of researchers from adapting Binet’s test
to the cultural milieu in which they worked. Henry Goddard (1866–1957) in the USA, Cyril
Burt (1883–1971) in the UK and Gilbert Phillips (1900–1975) in Australia all developed versions
of Binet’s test, but it was Lewis Terman (1877–1956) at Stanford University who published the
most ambitious version for use with English speakers. His test was appropriate for children aged
 Chapter 1 Psychological Tests 7

from 3 years to 16 years. It was Terman’s version, which he termed the Stanford-Binet, that was to
dominate as a test of intelligence for individuals until David Wechsler (1896–1981) published a test
for the individual assessment of adult intelligence in 1948.
Binet’s test and the adaptations of it depended heavily on tapping skills that were taught in
school, which importantly included verbal skills. A number of researchers saw the need for practical
or performance tests of ability that did not depend on verbal skills or exposure to mainstream
formal schooling. One of the earliest of these researchers was Stanley Porteus (1883–1972), who in
1915 reported the use of mazes for assessing comprehension and foresight. Porteus was born and
educated in Australia, but spent most of his working life in the USA, first at the Vineland Institute
in New Jersey and then at the University of Hawaii. He returned to Australia from time to time to
study the abilities of Aboriginal Australians. His test required the test taker to trace with a pencil
increasingly complex mazes while avoiding dead ends and not lifting the pencil from the paper.
The test is still used by neuropsychologists in assessing executive functions. Porteus’s work was the
forerunner of the development in Australia of a number of tests of ability that are not dependent on
access to English for their administration, the most notable of which was the Queensland Test by
Donald McElwain (1915–2000) and George Kearney (1939–). The administrator of this test used
mime to indicate task requirements. In New Zealand, tests of cognitive ability for Maori children
were undertaken by St George (see Ord, 1977).
Binet’s test and its adaptations, and the early performance tests were individual tests of ability in
that they required administration to one person at a time. An individual test of intelligence was of little
use when thousands of individuals had to be tested in a short space of time-the situation in the First
World War. Arthur Otis (1886–1964) in the USA and Cyril Burt in England trialled a variety of group
tests of intelligence, but the most convincing demonstration of their usefulness was to come from
Clarence Yoakum (1879–1945) and Robert Yerkes (1876–1956) and their colleagues, who developed
two group tests of general mental ability for use with recruits to the US armed services during the

Figure 1.2 Group testing of American army recruits during the First World War
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Inconstancy
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Inconstancy

Author: Roger D. Aycock

Illustrator: Leo Summers

Release date: November 22, 2023 [eBook #72203]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company,

1961

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

INCONSTANCY ***
 INCONSTANCY

By ROGER DEE

Illustrated by SUMMERS

The trouble with a Martian-Terran romance

is that it has to buck things like tradition.
Up on Mars, when they sing "If you were the only
girl in the world," they really mean it.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Amazing Stories January 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His first day on Earth promised to be even worse than Mirrh Yahn y
Cona had feared when he left Yrml Orise y Yrl, his fiancee, to
become Mars' first interplanetary ambassador. The frenetic bustle of
Denver spaceport, his ominous spiriting away through screaming
hordes of spectators, left him bewildered and uneasy.
Alone in the first brief privacy of his Denver Heptagon apartment, he
ideographed a facsimile transmission to Yrml at once. "I long for you
already," he said. "And for the serenity of home. Earthpeople are as
barbarous and mercurial as their weather."
Babelous decades of taped newsreels and video serials should have
prepared him for that inconstancy, but the first-hand reality was
appalling. He would gladly have returned home at once, before
planetary conjunction's end cut him off for two interminable years, but
for the inevitable stumbling-block: Earth had sent an exchange of her
own, and Mirrh Yahn y Cona could not back down without disgracing
his planet as well as himself.
"Write often," he pleaded, in closing. "That I may take comfort in your
steadfast regard even in this simian hurlyburly."
The missive finished, he found time remaining before Ellis, of
Diplomatic, arrived to switch on the multisensory projection of his last
evening with Yrml. The projection had been cubed in a Privileged
Couples nook complete with real plants and hermetically sealed
fountain, and near its close the two of them had sung the traditional
Song of Parting from the ancient Tchulkione Serafi.
Ellis arrived all too soon, trailing an aura of Scotch, diplomatic
enthusiasm and geniality.
"No time to waste," Ellis said briskly. "Little enough of it before you
leave us, and you're going to see Earth from pole to pole. The three
of us begin this evening with a sample of Denver night life."
"Three?"
"Came early to brief you," Ellis said. "Found a guide for you. Can't run
about unescorted, you know."
He answered the door buzzer and admitted a young woman in
evening dress. Rushed from the spaceport in what amounted to
cloak-and-dagger secrecy, Mirrh Yahn y Cona had until now seen
Earthwomen only on video and at indistinguishable distance, and the
sudden appearance of this one in the flesh unnerved him completely.

The girl was small and slender, well under Mirrh Yahn y Cona's
athletic six-foot height. She was warmly and roundly vital with a
stunning abundance of life at which the two-dimensional simulacra of
recorded soap-opera could only hint.
"Miss Leila Anderson," Ellis introduced her. "Member of Diplomatic,
so it's all in the family."
She took the hand that Mirrh Yahn y Cona raised as if to defend
himself.
"I'm to see that you aren't bored to death here among strangers," she
said. "All work and no play isn't good for anyone. Especially," she said
to Ellis, "for one so handsome. I didn't dream he'd look so—"
"So Terran," Ellis finished before she could say so human. "And why
not? We're from the same original stock, separated ages before our
history begins. Martian annals run back for millennia, did you know?
Gold mine of information, settle problems our experts have puzzled
over for centuries."
"I am not truly representative of my people," Mirrh Yahn y Cona said
with some bitterness. "A special case, reared from birth for this
assignment."
The multisensory projector swung into the Tchulkione Serafi's Song of
Parting. Mirrh Yahn y Cona's resonant baritone, operatically assertive
above Yrml's reedy soprano, filled the room. He shut off the machine
abruptly, feeling a sense of desecration that the tender scene had
been bared to alien eyes.
Still he felt a puzzling premonitory twinge of guilt when the projection
collapsed. Yrml had been infinitely desirable when the sequence was
cubed; why should she now seem so sallow and angular, so suddenly
and subtly distant?
"Remarkable voice," Ellis said. "You could make a fortune with it
here."
"It was lovely," Leila Anderson said. "Could I hear the rest of it some
time?"
"No." He realized his curtness and added, "It is the Song of Parting
for lovers. Very personal."
He found that he was still holding Leila's hand, and dropped it hastily.
Ellis, who had risen high in Diplomatic for good reasons, stepped
competently into the breach.
"Night duty calls," Ellis said. "Let's be off."

A diplomatic limousine without insignia took them to a nightclub large

enough, and dim enough, to promise anonymity. On the way a quick
summer shower left the streets wet and glistening and turned the
night into a many-scented freshness that was sheer fantasy to one
accustomed to the sterile air of sealed underground ways.
The rain had ended when they left the car, but the brief moment
outside, under a vast openness of night sky empty except for
dispersing clouds and speeding white moon, struck Mirrh Yahn y
Cona suddenly cold with too-familiar panic.
They had found their table before anyone spoke.
"Agoraphobia?" Ellis said, in frowning concern. "I should think you'd
be conditioned against that, with all the time they've had to prepare
you."
Leila Anderson put an impulsive hand on the Martian's.
"I'm a touch claustrophobic, so I know how it must be." She shivered.
"To be buried under all those tons and tons of—"
"Immurement is security," Mirrh Yahn y Cona said. "The ultimate
stability."
"You'll get acclimatized," Ellis said. "It takes time."
He broke off to peer through the gloom beyond the dance floor.
"Good Lord, there's Ryerson of the Post, camera and all. If he
recognizes me he'll know who Mirrh is and—"
"Yahn," Mirrh Yahn y Cona corrected automatically. "With us the
second name is impersonal. First is used only by loved ones."
"Yahn, then," Ellis said. "If Ryerson tumbles, he'll want pictures and
an interview. Yahn will be lionized before he's ready. Can't publicize
him until he knows the ropes."
"You'd better skip," Leila said. "If we all go, he'll spot us for sure."
"Right." Ellis shoved some money at Leila. "Call me at my office when
it's safe."
When Ellis had gone and their waiter had brought drinks, they faced
each other across the table, Yahn visibly on guard and Leila with the
beginning of speculation in her eyes.
"Maybe it's better like this, without protocol," she said. "Yahn, can you
—do you dance in our gravity?"
He was bitter again. "Remember my training. I am taller, stronger and
more freakishly agile than any Martian—including my fiancee—has
been for thousands of years."
Her clear look made him ashamed and he added, "With us the dance
is an art form only. Here the intent seems different."
"It is," Leila said almost grimly. "Finish your drink, Buster. You're going
to need it."

He needed several before the evening was finished. The Terran

dance in its limited variations offered small challenge; Yahn mastered
it with an ease that delighted Leila and brought tacit envy from other
couples. The cocktails may have contributed to his own mixed
reactions, lending primitive tactility to Leila's pliant response.
Neither of them, when Ryerson of the Post went away with his
camera, considered calling Ellis.
"I don't often enjoy my work so much," Leila said. "Let's not spoil the
evening with diplomacy, shall we?"
They left the Diplomatic vehicle for Ellis, rented an agency car and
drove through the charged serenity of the night into the mountains.
They talked the Moon down and the Sun up. Nothing took place that
might have shocked a reasonably tolerant duenna, but by dawn they
had reached the sort of understanding that comes spontaneously or
not at all.
"The biologists who tailored me to Terrestrial standards," Yahn said,
"did their work too well. I find myself more Terran than Martian."
The immovable obstacle, of course, was Yahn's obligation to Yrml,
who would be waiting with enduring Martian patience for his return.
Leila went into that matter later with Ellis, not so much to enlist his
dubious sympathies as to clarify the bristly problem in her own
troubled mind.
"Martians use our broadcasts as a standard of judgment," Leila said.
"And you know where that leads. The more prominent the people in
the newscasts, the higher the divorce rate. The more popular a video
serial, the greater its emotional shilly-shallying. To Martians we're the
last word in fickleness."
"I know," Ellis agreed. "Our cultural geometry was always triangular."
"Exactly. So how can Mirrh-Yahn break the news to his dry little
fiancee back home? We're accustomed to inconstancy and to
incontinence. We sing corny songs about girls who write jilting letters
to their men in service. Our opera flaunts Perkinses and Mesdames
Butterfly, and the fact that we enjoy them shocks the ascetic pants off
the Martians. Did you know that their population control quota
demands a strictly equal sex-ratio, so that there's never more than
one boy for one girl from the beginning? Mirrh-Yahn simply hasn't it in
him to leave Yrml dangling. He'd feel a renegade for the rest of his
life."
"Mirrh-Yahn," Ellis noted. "Obviously he's willing enough, if you're on
a first-name footing."
"I can't call him Yahn any longer, like a stranger. Mirrh-Yahn is a
compromise."
Ellis rummaged in his desk and brought out a personnel folder.
"Dossier on J. Frederic Thomas, our young man on Mars. Maybe we
can turn up an angle through him."
The exchange ambassador's folder was neither interesting nor
helpful. J. Frederic Thomas stood revealed as a dwarfish scholastic
type, complete with massive glasses and receding hairline.
"He looks more Martian than Terran," Leila said. "Is that deliberate?"
"Mars sent us a man specially bred to fit into our culture, didn't they?
Simple job here to turn up a Martian type. Matter of fact, J. F.'s
reports show he fits in up there like a native."
"Check with him, then," Leila said. "Though I can't imagine what help
we can expect from a wizened little stick like that."

Leila was wrong. J. Frederic Thomas—who quite predictably, being

paired off with the only unattached female on Mars as his cicerone,
had immediately found himself caught in the same thorny dilemma
that gouged his opposite number on Earth—was eager to help. The
result of Ellis' inquiry was a swift letter from Yrml Orise y Yrl to Mirrh
Yahn y Cona; a letter which Ellis turned over in duplicate, one in
Martian ideograph, the other a translation, to Leila.
It broke Yrml's engagement to Yahn for the excellent reasons that J.
Frederic Thomas was not only more Martian in physique and
deportment, but also possessed a fine reedy tenor which blended
ever so better with Yrml's soprano in the less poignant duets from the
Tchulkione Serafi.
"The man never lived," Ellis pointed out, "Martian or Terran, no matter
how relieved he might be, whose ego wouldn't need attention after a
letter beginning Dear Yahn. Shall I let it go on through the mails, or
will you—"
Leila answered him on her way out. "Don't bother," she said.

THE END
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