The use of technology for arts-based activities in older adults living with mild cognitive impairment or dementia: A scoping review.

For older adults living with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, creative arts-based activities can offer many benefits from enjoyment as leisure/recreation to an avenue to maintain cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing. With growing interest and recognition that technology could have potential to assist in delivering these activities in more accessible and personalised ways, a scoping review was undertaken to systematically examine the scientific literature for technology-assisted creative arts activities for older adults living with dementia. We searched PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Scopus and ACM Digital Library databases using keywords centering on population with dementia, an intervention using technology, and a context of creative arts, with no restrictions on the type of outcome measured. We retrieved 3739 records, with an additional 22 from hand-searching. 51 full-text articles met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Findings of the review indicate technologies principally being designed for music activities (listening, and music-making), as well as storytelling and visual arts. The majority of devices were custom-made, with studies mainly reporting on validating the success of the device/intervention. This suggests most work in the field is currently at prototyping stage, although a few devices are now commercially available. Recommendations for future research includes involvement of participants reporting on their previous experiences in the arts and how this influences co-design choices, and inclusion of different severities of dementia in the participant/co-design group. Furthering device development past prototyping stage as well as collaboration between teams would enable comparisons to be made across different types of devices used for the same activity, and comparisons across arts-based activities that could lead to cross-disciplinary outcomes for the design of creative arts-based assistive technologies.

Individual differences in mental imagery in different modalities and levels of intentionality.

Mental imagery is a highly common component of everyday cognitive functioning. While substantial progress is being made in clarifying this fundamental human function, much is still unclear or unknown. A more comprehensive account of mental imagery aspects would be gained by examining individual differences in age, sex, and background experience in an activity and their association with imagery in different modalities and intentionality levels. The current online study combined multiple imagery self-report measures in a sample (n = 279) with a substantial age range (18-65 years), aiming to identify whether age, sex, or background experience in sports, music, or video games were associated with aspects of imagery in the visual, auditory, or motor stimulus modality and voluntary or involuntary intentionality level. The findings show weak positive associations between age and increased vividness of voluntary auditory imagery and decreased involuntary musical imagery frequency, weak associations between being female and more vivid visual imagery, and relations of greater music and video game experience with higher involuntary musical imagery frequency. Moreover, all imagery stimulus modalities were associated with each other, for both intentionality levels, except involuntary musical imagery frequency, which was only related to higher voluntary auditory imagery vividness. These results replicate previous research but also contribute new insights, showing that individual differences in age, sex, and background experience are associated with various aspects of imagery such as modality, intentionality, vividness, and frequency. The study's findings can inform the growing domain of applications of mental imagery to clinical and pedagogical settings.

Towards a new methodological approach: A novel paradigm for covertly inducing and sampling different forms of spontaneous cognition.

A wide range of cognitions is generated involuntarily in the human mind daily. We developed a paradigm, which covertly induces and samples spontaneous cognitions in the visual and auditory modalities, focusing on 3 key characteristics: spontaneity, repetition, and emotional valence. Sixty participants watched two visual clips while listening to music and assessed their characteristics. Post-induction, participants closed their eyes for 5 min and then completed a questionnaire, which indirectly samples different forms of spontaneous cognition. Induction was effective in all categories. Results indicated that different forms of spontaneous musical cognitions are experienced as longer in duration and less negative in emotional valence compared to visual cognitions. The findings are discussed in relation to spontaneous cognition methodology and experiences in different modalities. Spontaneous cognitions are multifaceted and not unitary constructs as previously considered and studied, and as such the novel induction and sampling paradigm presents a promising line of research.

A novel indirect method for capturing involuntary musical imagery under varying cognitive load.

Involuntary musical imagery (INMI), i.e the internal experience of a repetitive musical fragment, is one of the most ubiquitous forms of spontaneous cognition. Findings regarding the relationship between INMI and cognitive load are conflicting. In the present study, 200 participants watched and evaluated two non-dialogue, music-only film trailers. Subsequently, they either closed their eyes for 5 min (baseline), or engaged in one of three dot tasks of varying challenge and attentional demand (low, medium, and high cognitive load). Finally, they completed a novel "Mind Activity Questionnaire", which allows for indirect INMI sampling rather than direct questioning. The same questionnaire was completed 24 hours later. Overall, a significant negative linear trend was found. At baseline, 65% of people reported experiencing INMI. This rate decreased to 32.5% in the low load condition with further reductions observed in the medium and high conditions, which did not differ significantly from each other. INMI frequency and duration followed the same pattern as the induction rates. In the 24-hour follow-up, 21% of participants reported INMI experiences. This study supports the hypothesis that INMI occurrence, frequency, and duration relate to spare cognitive capacity and demonstrates an ecologically valid laboratory paradigm for covertly inducing and documenting INMI experiences.

Environmental and mental conditions predicting the experience of involuntary musical imagery: An experience sampling method study.

An experience sampling method (ESM) study on 40 volunteers was conducted to explore the environmental factors and psychological conditions related to involuntary musical imagery (INMI) in everyday life. Participants reported 6 times per day for one week on their INMI experiences, relevant contextual information and associated environmental conditions. The resulting data was modeled with Bayesian networks and led to insights into the interplay of factors related to INMI experiences. The activity that a person is engaged was found to play an important role in the experience of mind wandering, which in turn enables the experience of INMI. INMI occurrence is independent of the time of the day while the INMI trigger affects the subjective evaluation of the INMI experience. The results are compared to findings from earlier studies based on retrospective surveys and questionnaires and highlight the advantage of ESM techniques in research on spontaneous experiences like INMI.