Statistical image properties and aesthetic judgments on abstract paintings by Robert Pepperell.

In this exploratory study, we asked whether objective statistical image properties can predict subjective aesthetic ratings for a set of 48 abstract paintings created by the artist Robert Pepperell. Ruta and colleagues (2021) used the artworks previously to study the effect of curved/angular contour on liking and wanting decisions. We related a predefined set of statistical image properties to the eight different dimensions of aesthetic judgments from their study. Our results show that the statistical image properties can predict a large portion of the variance in the different aesthetic judgments by Ruta and colleagues. For example, adjusted R2 values for liking, attractiveness, visual comfort, and approachability range between 0.52 and 0.60 in multiple linear regression models with four predictors each. For wanting judgments in an (imagined) gallery context, the explained variance is even higher (adjusted R2 of 0.78). To explain these findings, we hypothesize that differences in cognitive processing of Pepperell's abstract paintings are minimized because this set of stimuli has no apparent content and is of uniform artistic style and cultural context. Under this condition, the aesthetic ratings by Ruta and colleagues are largely based on perceptual processing that systematically varies along a relatively small set of objective image properties.

Gaze patterns reveal aesthetic distance while viewing art.

For centuries, Western philosophers have argued that aesthetic experiences differ from common, everyday pleasing sensations, and further, that mental states, such as disinterested contemplation and aesthetic distance, underlie these complex experiences. We empirically tested whether basic perceptual processes of information intake reveal evidence for aesthetic distance, specifically toward visual art. We conducted two eye tracking experiments using appropriately matched visual stimuli (environmental scenes and representational paintings) with 59 participants using two different presentation durations (25 and 6 s). Linear mixed-effects models considering individual differences showed that affective content (pleasantness and arousal), but not stimulus composition (complexity), leads to differential effects when viewing representational paintings in comparison to environmental scenes. We demonstrate that an increase in aesthetic pleasantness induced by representational paintings during a free-viewing task leads to a slower and deeper processing mode than when viewing environmental scenes of motivational relevance, for which we observed the opposite effect. In addition, long presentation durations led to an increase in scanning behavior during visual art perception. These empirical findings inform the debate about how aesthetic experiences differ from everyday perceptual processes by showing that the notion of aesthetic distance may be better understood by examining different modes of viewing.

Abertura à experiência e preferência em obras de arte figurativas e não figurativas / Opening to experience and preference for figurative and non-figurative works of art / Apertura a la experiencia y preferencia por obras de arte figurativas y no figurativas

A arte não representacional é outra maneira de aludir à arte abstrata, sendo um estilo no qual os objetos não se parecem com aqueles que se apresentam na natureza física concreta. No último século, foram realizadas investigações experimentais sobre estética e personalidade objetivando revelar fatores contribuintes para as diferenças quanto às preferências artísticas. Este estudo explorou as associações entre abertura à experiência e preferência por arte visual. Os participantes completaram a Escala Fatorial de Abertura e classificaram a preferência por quatro imagens diferentes correspondentes à arte representativa e não representativa. A análise estatística dos dados revelou uma correlação positiva entre o fator Fantasia e a apreciação pelas pinturas abstratas (r =.20). Não foi verificada uma correlação estatisticamente significativa entre essa dimensão e a apreciação de pinturas figurativas. Embora esses achados sejam exploratórios, outras medidas mais completas relacionadas às diferenças individuais e preferências artísticas poderão ser utilizadas em novos estudos no Brasil.

Nonrepresentational art is another way to refer to abstract art elating to a style in which objects do not resemble those known in physical nature. In the last hundred years some experimental investigations of aesthetics and personality have been conducted to reveal fundamental factors which contribute to differences in artistic preference. This study explored associations among openness to experience and preference for visual art. Participants completed an Openess Fatorial Scale and provided preference ratings for different paintings corresponding to representational and nonrepresentational art. The statistical analysis of the data showed a positive correlation between the fantasy factor and appreciation for abstract paintings (r =.20). Here was no statistically significant correlation between this same dimension and the appreciation for figurative paintings. Although these findings are somewhat exploratory and more comprehensive measures of individual differences and art preferences could be employed in new studies in Brazil.

El arte no representacional es otra forma de referirse al arte abstracto que se adapta a un estilo en el que los objetos no se parecen a los que se conocen en la naturaleza física concrecta. En el siglo se han llevado a cabo investigaciones experimentales sobre estética y personalidad para revelar los factores contribuintes a las diferencias en preferencias artísticas. Los participantes completaron una Escala Fatorial de Abertura a experiencia y otorgaron calificaciones de preferencia para 4 diferentes images correspondientes al arte representativa y no representativa. El análisis estadístico de los datos mostró correlación entre el factor fantasía y y la apreciación de pinturas abstractas (r =.20). No fue verificada una correlación estadísticamente significativa entre esta dimension y la apreciación de las pinturas figurativas. Aunque estos hallazgos son exploratorios y podrían emplear medidas más completas de diferencias individuales y preferencias artísticas en nuevos estudios en Brasil.

The effect of exchanging drawings with peers on the happiness of children with cancer, aged 7-11 years: A clinical trial.

INTRODUCTION: Improving the mental status of children with cancer is part of nurses' duties in planning nursing care and is achieved in different ways. This study attempts to combine drawing with peer interaction to improve the mental status of sick children and investigate the effect of exchanging drawings with peers on these children's happiness. METHOD: This clinical trial was conducted on a sample of 66 children with cancer, ages 7-11 years, who were randomly assigned to two groups. The intervention was carried out over five weeks by the exchange of drawings between healthy children at school and children with cancer. Both groups of children drew one drawing each week. The children's happiness was measured by the researcher before and after the intervention (i.e., week five) using a questionnaire. RESULTS: The results showed no significant differences between the two groups in terms of happiness after the intervention. The happiness score was 3.15 ±0.34 in the control group and 3.02 ±0.3 in the intervention group before the intervention; afterwards, this score was 3.022± 0.22 among the controls and 3.11± 0.25 among the patients. The comparison of the two groups using the t-test showed P = 0.075 before the intervention and P = 0.11 after the intervention. CONCLUSION: Given the results obtained, future studies are recommended to administer lengthier interventions and enable the physical presence of healthy peers along sick children or to use the exchange of drawings with peers in combination with other psychological interventions so as to promote happiness in children with cancer.

Hedonic Preferences to Audio and Visual Stimulation in Seniors with Cognitive Impairments.

BACKGROUND: Hedonic (or aesthetic) preferences to repeated sensory stimulation can remain stable over time (Island of Stability Effect, ISE) or vary with prior exposures (Mere Exposure Effect, MEE). OBJECTIVE: Here we compared the liking ratings of seniors with cognitive impairments (mostly mild-to-moderate dementia, DPs) and neurotypical senior controls (CNs) to audio and visual stimuli and examined whether those ratings conformed to the ISE or the MEE predictions. METHOD: Participants (n = 212) rated sets of stimuli repeated three times at weekly intervals: images of Picasso's paintings, PANTONE color cards, and avant-garde music clips. RESULTS: The aggregated liking ratings of DPs and CNs were stable over time, in line with the ISE model. However, latent growth modeling indicated that those stable responses might have masked differences at the individual level, since seniors in both cohorts exhibited clusters of different responses over the time evaluated, supporting the predictions of the MEE. Notably, there was a dampening of hedonic experiences in DPs comparatively to CNs. CONCLUSION: The presence of hedonic responses (and individual variations) in DPs is relevant not only to their wellbeing and therapy interventions involving audio and visual stimulation, but also to the design of spaces that offset the downturn in hedonic experiences affecting seniors with cognitive impairments.

Face Tuning in Depression.

The latest COVID-19 pandemic reveals that unexpected changes elevate depression bringing people apart, but also calling for social sharing. Yet the impact of depression on social cognition and functioning is not well understood. Assessment of social cognition is crucial not only for a better understanding of major depressive disorder (MDD), but also for screening, intervention, and remediation. Here by applying a novel experimental tool, a Face-n-Food task comprising a set of images bordering on the Giuseppe Arcimboldo style, we assessed the face tuning in patients with MDD and person-by-person matched controls. The key benefit of these images is that single components do not trigger face processing. Contrary to common beliefs, the outcome indicates that individuals with depression express intact face responsiveness. Yet, while in depression face sensitivity is tied with perceptual organization, in typical development, it is knotted with social cognition capabilities. Face tuning in depression, therefore, may rely upon altered behavioral strategies and underwriting brain mechanisms. To exclude a possible camouflaging effect of female social skills, we examined gender impact. Neither in depression nor in typical individuals had females excelled in face tuning. The outcome sheds light on the origins of the face sensitivity and alterations in social functioning in depression and mental well-being at large. Aberrant social functioning in depression is likely to be the result of deeply-rooted maladaptive strategies rather than of poor sensitivity to social signals. This has implications for mental well-being under the current pandemic conditions.

Pictorial size perception in schizophrenia

In this study, we compared visual pictorial size perception between healthy volunteers (CG) and an experimental group (EG) of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. We have been using paintings by Salvador Dalí and Rorschach plates to estimate visual pictorial size perception. In this transversal, ex post facto, and quasi-experimental study, we observed differences between EG and CG. Schizophrenic in-patients perceived sizes about 1.3-fold greater than healthy volunteers (p=0.006), implying that pictorial size perception is altered in some way in schizophrenia. Considering the present and previous results, this measurement of diameter size of first pictorial perception may be a useful estimate of some aspects of perceptual alterations that may be associated with psychotic symptoms in prodromal and acute schizophrenic episodes and other related mental states. Eventually, this may help in preventing people from evolving to acute episodes.

Experiences of Bereaved Family Members Receiving Commemorative Paintings: A Qualitative Study.

Importance: Although family members of patients who die in the intensive care unit commonly experience long-term psychological distress, end-of-life bereavement support programs for such relatives are uncommon. Whether art influences the grief experience of families is largely unexplored. Objective: To explore the influence of personalized paintings created to honor deceased critically ill patients on family members' bereavement experience. Design, Setting, and Participants: A qualitative descriptive analysis was conducted of semistructured interviews of grieving relatives who received a painting after the death of their loved one. The deceased patients were from a 21-bed medical-surgical intensive care unit. Eleven families were invited to receive a painting, of whom 1 family declined. A total of 22 family members of 10 patients who died in the intensive care unit were interviewed in the study between July 11, 2017, and May 19, 2019. Interventions: Patients were enrolled in an end-of-life care program that elicits and implements wishes of patients and their families to bring peace during the dying process. Selected families of 10 decedents were invited to receive a painting to honor their loved one 1 to 10 months after the patient's death. Using details about the patient's life story, the artist created individualized paintings to commemorate each patient. Main Outcomes and Measures: The experiences of family members receiving a personalized painting and its reported influence on their grieving experience. Results: The family members of 10 decedents (mean [SD] age, 60 [14] years; 5 women [50%]; 8 White patients [80%]) were interviewed. The central theme of art to facilitate healing was illustrated through the following domains: the cocreation process, painting narratives, postmortem connections, and legacy. The process of cocreating the paintings with the artist and family members involved reminiscing, storytelling, and creativity. Family members emphasized the role of art to facilitate healing, exemplified through connections with images portrayed that deeply resonated with memories of their loved one. Participants indicated that the paintings validated that the patient was remembered, helped families feel less alone during a time of grief, honored the loved one's life, and enhanced connections between family members and clinicians. Conclusions and Relevance: This qualitative study's findings suggest that the creation of personalized paintings commemorating the lives of patients may help foster legacy and postmortem connections with clinicians and may help family members in their healing process.

¿Cómo han vivido los niños el confinamiento por el coronavirus? / How have children experienced the confinement due to coronavirus?

INTRODUCCIÓN: los niños muestran sentimientos y vivencias que no saben o no se atreven a expresar y que se pueden conocer a través de sus dibujos e imaginación. La Asociación Española de Pediatría de Atención Primaria (AEPap) se ha propuesto conocer cómo han vivido los niños el confinamiento. MATERIAL Y MÉTODOS: se ha organizado un concurso en la página web Familia y Salud. Sujetos: niños o niñas de todo el territorio nacional con edades comprendidas entre los 3 y 16 años. Trabajos: dibujos, cuentos y vídeos breves. RESULTADOS: hemos recibido 53 trabajos procedentes de diferentes comunidades autónomas y entregado cinco premios. Los elementos que más se repiten son: el coronavirus, figuras de niños dentro de las casas, el arco iris entre las nubes y los sanitarios. El aburrimiento, la tristeza de no poder ver a abuelos y amigos, la confianza en los sanitarios, la valoración positiva del cambio de vida en la familia, la mejora en la contaminación ambiental y el mensaje positivo de que todo va a salir bien son algunos de los temas expresados. CONCLUSIONES: los resultados obtenidos en el presente estudio denotan optimismo en general, y permiten concluir que los dibujos, los relatos y los vídeos son herramientas útiles para analizar la percepción de esta población ante situaciones de riesgo. Además, destaca el interés de los pediatras de Atención Primaria por conocer cómo han vivido los niños el confinamiento a causa de la infección por coronavirus y crear la inquietud de que el dibujo infantil debe ser estudiado de manera rigurosa

INTRODUCTION: children have feelings and experiences that they cannot or will not express and that may manifest through their drawings and imagination. The Asociación Española de Pediatría de Atención Primaria (Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics, AEPap) wanted to explore how children have experienced the confinement. MATERIAL AND METHODS: we organized a contest through the Family and Health website. The study population consisted of children residing anywhere in Spain aged 3 to 16 years. The works submitted were drawings, micro stories or micro videos. RESULTS: we received 53 works from children in different autonomous communities and gave 5 awards. The elements featured most frequently were the coronavirus, figures of children indoors, a rainbow in the clouds and health care professionals. Some of the subjects expressed in the works were boredom, missing grandparents and friends, trust in health care professionals, a positive perception of the change in life in the family, the improvement in environmental pollution and a positive view that everything will turn out well. CONCLUSIONS: the results obtained in this study suggest a generalized optimism and allow us to conclude that drawings, stories and videos are a useful tool to analyze the perception of this population in risk situations. We also ought to highlight the interest of primary care paediatricians in how children have experienced the confinement imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic and raise awareness that children's drawings should be carefully studied

An objective evaluation of the beholder's response to abstract and figurative art based on construal level theory.

Does abstract art evoke a different cognitive state than figurative art? To address this question empirically, we bridged art theory and cognitive research and designed an experiment leveraging construal level theory (CLT). CLT is based on experimental data showing that psychologically distant events (i.e., occurring farther away in space or time) are represented more abstractly than closer events. We measured construal level elicited by abstract vs. representational art and asked subjects to assign abstract/representational paintings by the same artist to a situation that was temporally/spatially near or distant. Across three experiments, we found that abstract paintings were assigned to the distant situation significantly more often than representational paintings, indicating that abstract art was evocative of greater psychological distance. Our data demonstrate that different levels of artistic abstraction evoke different levels of mental abstraction and suggest that CLT provides an empirical approach to the analysis of cognitive states evoked by different levels of artistic abstraction.

Vincent van Gogh and his illness. A reflection on a posthumous diagnostic exercise.

Many attempts have been undertaken in the past to perform a proper diagnosis of the illness of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam organized a meeting of experts on this issue in 2016. Publication of a final conclusion in a medical journal is still in progress. This article will first outline the meeting and then reflect on pathobiographical issues offering possibilities and limitations in this posthumous attempt at diagnosis. This will give us a summary of the symptomatology without the intention to label them to a diagnosis. In terms of examples of problematic issues, special attention is given to the role of alcohol abuse and disturbances of consciousness. The essay will try to answer questions on the importance of determining a diagnosis for art historians and visitors of exhibitions. A hypothesis on the possible influence of visual perception on triggering neuromodulation will be discussed and illustrated by considering four paintings. The hypothesis might be that forced activation of the "wrong" neural pathways that do not meet Van Gogh's preferential personal emotional system in moments of increased stress, and influenced by other factors like alcohol abuse and sleep deprivation, can trigger disturbances in functioning of this system. Though it is clear that Van Gogh was an excellent painter in spite of and not thanks to his illness and that he was unable to paint during episodes of brain dysfunction, a few exceptions are known of paintings and drawings that were created during these episodes; his self-portrait from the Oslo museum, which was most recently identified as such, will be shown.

[Improved instrumental activities of daily living in acquired savant syndrome patient after developing interest in drawing].

We performed examinations of a 73-year-old, right-handed man who developed herpes simplex encephalitis, with cognitive dysfunction including severe Wernicke's aphasia. Although he had never previously been interested in arts, use of a coloring book, recommended by his wife, led him to start drawing. A few years after the onset of brain disease, the patient began to copy pictures of landscapes. The lesion was in the left hemisphere and his work showed a strongly realistic tendency, thus we think that this case demonstrated characteristics of acquired savant syndrome. Along with the increase in drawing ability, instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), such as shopping and use of public transport, were also considerably improved in this patient. On the other hand, results of neuropsychological tests, such as the Standard Language Test of Aphasia, were not improved. We concluded that a sense of accomplishment from the drawing activity and communication with supporters might have led to improvement of IADL in this case.

Painting epilepsy - The essence of disease by participants of the Latin American Summer School on Epilepsy (LASSE XIII).

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to present and analyze the way epilepsy researchers and specialists present epilepsy through visual art forms. METHODS: Students and epilepsy specialists, including clinicians and scientists, participating in the Latin American Summer School on Epilepsy (LASSE XIII) 2019 were asked to voluntarily portray epilepsy artistically by painting or drawing what they perceive that represents the feeling or challenges of persons with epilepsy. Resulting artwork was categorized according to several themes. The latter was analyzed in the clinical and social context of the disease. RESULTS: Twenty-six paintings available for analysis have been reviewed. The three main interpretations of epilepsy were outlined as follows: epilepsy as an identity schism, epilepsy as a loss of control, and epilepsy as a complex condition. Five artworks best suited the first category as they presented people with faces split into healthy and diseased sides, representing the emotional and social burden of seizures. Three drawings defined epilepsy as a loss of control, visualizing that all the phases of seizure activity (ictal, postictal, and interictal) are able to imprison the patient by disrupting mental processes. The last theme included four artworks that defined epilepsy as being a multicomponent enigma: the intertwining of unresolved pathophysiologic processes and psychosocial burden accompanying the disease was emphasized. In addition, the challenges to care for the patients in order to improve not only seizures but also their quality of life were noticed as an idea complementing the visual definition of epilepsy. CONCLUSION: Participants of LASSE XIII demonstrated an ability to empathize with their patients in retrospect by portraying the inner feelings of division and imprisonment of those having seizures. Epilepsy specialists visualize the disease as a composite phenomenon both in terms of its neural origin and of multidisciplinary requirements to implement its care.

The form of a 'half-baked' creative idea: Empirical explorations into the structure of ill-defined mental representations.

Creative thought is conventionally believed to involve searching memory and generating multiple independent candidate ideas followed by selection and refinement of the most promising. Honing theory, which grew out of the quantum approach to describing how concepts interact, posits that what appears to be discrete, separate ideas are actually different projections of the same underlying mental representation, which can be described as a superposition state, and which may take different outward forms when reflected upon from different perspectives. As creative thought proceeds, this representation loses potentiality to be viewed from different perspectives and manifest as different outcomes. Honing theory yields different predictions from conventional theories about the mental representation of an idea midway through the creative process. These predictions were pitted against one another in two studies: one closed-ended and one open-ended. In the first study, participants were interrupted midway through solving an analogy problem and wrote down what they were thinking in terms of a solution. In the second, participants were instructed to create a painting that expressed their true essence and describe how they conceived of the painting. For both studies, naïve judges categorized these responses as supportive of either the conventional view or the honing theory view. The results of both studies were significantly more consistent with the predictions of honing theory. Some implications for creative cognition, and cognition in general, are discussed.

Abstract art paintings, global image properties, and verbal descriptions: An empirical and computational investigation.

While global image properties (GIPs) relate to preference ratings in many categories of visual stimuli, this relationship is typically not seen for abstract art paintings. Using computational network science and empirical methods, we further investigated GIPs and subjective preferences. First, we replicated the earlier observation that GIPs do not relate to preferences for abstract art. Next, we estimated the network structure of abstract art paintings using two approaches: the first was based on verbal descriptions and the second on GIPs. We examined the extent to which network measures computed from these two networks (1) related to preference for abstract art paintings and (2) determined affiliation of images to specific art styles. Only semantic-based network predicted the subjective preference ratings and art style. Finally, preference and GIPs differed for sub-groups of abstract art paintings. Our results demonstrate the importance of verbal descriptors in evaluating abstract art, and that it is not useful in empirical aesthetics to treat abstract art paintings as a single category.