A nudge in a healthier direction: How environmental cues help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal.

Losing weight is a goal for many people, but it is hard to pursue. However, dieting cues in the environment hold promise for improving individuals' eating behavior. For example, exposure to thin, human-like sculptures by the artist Alberto Giacometti has been found to promote healthy snack choices at a vending machine. Whether health- or weight-related processes drive such effects has not yet been determined. However, a detailed understanding of the content-related drivers of environmental cues' effects provides the first indications regarding a cue's possible use. Therefore, two laboratory studies were conducted. They examined the Giacometti sculptures' effects on unhealthy and healthy food intake (Study 1) and on the completion of weight- and health-related fragmented words (Study 2). Study 1 indicated that the sculptures are weight-related by showing that they reduced food intake independent of food healthiness. Furthermore, the "Giacometti effect" was moderated by restrained eating. Restrained eaters, who are known for their weight-control goal, ate less after having been exposed to the thin sculptures. The results of Study 2 pointed in the same direction. Restrained eaters completed more weight-related words after being exposed to the sculptures. Overall, these studies suggest that the thin sculptures are primarily weight-related cues and particularly helpful for restrained eaters. Environmental weight-control cues such as the Giacometti sculptures could act as a counterforce to our obesogenic environment and help restrained eaters pursue their weight-control goal. In this way, they could nudge food decisions in a healthier direction.

The Aeolus project: Science outreach through art.

With a general decline in people's choosing to pursue science and engineering degrees there has never been a greater need to raise the awareness of lesser known fields such as acoustics. Given this context, a large-scale public engagement project, the 'Aeolus project', was created to raise awareness of acoustics science through a major collaboration between an acclaimed artist and acoustics researchers. It centred on touring the large singing sculpture Aeolus during 2011/12, though the project also included an extensive outreach programme of talks, exhibitions, community workshops and resources for schools. Described here are the motivations behind the project and the artwork itself, the ways in which scientists and an artist collaborated, and the public engagement activities designed as part of the project. Evaluation results suggest that the project achieved its goal of inspiring interest in the discipline of acoustics through the exploration of an other-worldly work of art.

[Personal motif in art]. / Személyes motívum a müvészetben.

One of the basic questions of the art psychology is whether a personal motif is to be found behind works of art and if so, how openly or indirectly it appears in the work itself. Analysis of examples and documents from the fine arts and literature allow us to conclude that the personal motif that can be identified by the viewer through symbols, at times easily at others with more difficulty, gives an emotional plus to the artistic product. The personal motif may be found in traumatic experiences, in communication to the model or with other emotionally important persons (mourning, disappointment, revenge, hatred, rivalry, revolt etc.), in self-searching, or self-analysis. The emotions are expressed in artistic activity either directly or indirectly. The intention nourished by the artist's identity (Kunstwollen) may stand in the way of spontaneous self-expression, channelling it into hidden paths. Under the influence of certain circumstances, the artist may arouse in the viewer, consciously or unconsciously, an illusionary, misleading image of himself. An examination of the personal motif is one of the important research areas of art therapy.

The Manchester Color Wheel: validation in secondary school pupils.

BACKGROUND: As part of our research programme into facilitating improved ways of communicating with patients, especially about more sensitive clinical issues, we have been investigating whether there are any non-verbal methods that might aid this process. One such approach is to ask patients to choose a color in response to a particular question, for instance about health or psychological status, and for this purpose we developed the Manchester Color Wheel (MCW). This instrument consists of positive, neutral and negative colors and its validation in normal adults and those with anxiety or depression showed that it is responsive to change and reproducible. It also has the capacity to identify a positive frame of mind. We concluded that it might be a particularly useful instrument in adolescents and therefore this study aimed to validate it in a secondary school. METHODS: 620 pupils (aged 11-17 years, mean age 14.0 years, 298 (48.1%) males, 322 (51.9%) females) at Sale Grammar School in Greater Manchester were asked to relate their mood to a MCW color and also complete the Hospital Anxiety Depression (HAD) questionnaire. To give these pupils an experience in science, 197 were divided into four subgroups for an 'experiment' to ascertain whether, compared to controls, a change in mood color choice could be induced by participation in sport, music or art activities. RESULTS: Although mood color and HAD depression score are unlikely to be measuring exactly the same psychological state, a negative mood color was chosen by 62.5% of HAD depressed compared to only 14.5% of HAD normal pupils (p < 0.001). In contrast, a positive mood color was chosen by 48.9% of normal and only 18.8% of depressed pupils (p < 0.001). In the 'experiment', compared to controls, all activities resulted in an increased choice of positive mood colors which reached significance for sport and music. CONCLUSION: This study confirms the potential utility of the MCW to rapidly and easily assess a variety of health issues in large populations, including adolescents. Some of our results should also be of interest to educationalists.

Exploration time of static images implying different body movements causes time distortions.

Studies of subjective time have adopted different methods to understand different processes of time perception. Four sculptures, with implied movement ranked as 1.5-, 3.0-, 4.5-, and 6.0-point stimuli on the Body Movement Ranking Scale, were randomly presented to 42 university students untrained in visual arts and ballet. Participants were allowed to observe the images for any length of time (exploration time) and, immediately after each image was observed, recorded the duration as they perceived it. The results of temporal ratio (exploration time/time estimation) showed that exploration time of images also affected perception of time, i.e., the subjective time for sculptures representing implied movement were overestimated.

Depiction of facial nerve paresis in the gallery of portraits carved in stone by George Matthew the Dalmatian on the Sibenik Cathedral dating from the 15th century.

The introductory segment of this paper briefly describes George Matthew the Dalmatian, the architect who, between 1441 and 1473, oversaw the construction of the Cathedral of St. James in Sibenik, a city on the Croatian side of the Adriatic coast. Of the most impressive details included in this monumental construction and sculptural flamboyant gothic production infused with distinctive Dalmatian spirit is a frieze of 71 stone and three lion portraits encircling the outer apse wall. From the intriguing amalgamation of portraits of anonymous people this master came across in his surrounding, the fiftieth head in the row has been selected for this occasion. On the face of a younger man the authors have recognized and described pathognomonic right-sided facial nerve paresis. The question posed here is whether this is coincidental or it represents the master's courage, given that instead of famous people in the cathedral he situated not only ordinary people but also those "labelled" and traditionally marginalized, thus, in the most beautiful manner, foreshadowing the forthcoming spirit of Humanism and Renaissance in Croatian and European art.

The mother in the text: metapsychology and phantasy in the work of interpretation.

In this paper the author discusses some characteristics of a psychoanalytic text on the basis of two pages of Freud's essay, Delusions and dreams in Jensen's 'Gradiva' (Freud, 1906), on the concept of the return of the repressed. Analysis of the text shows that the four references (Horace, Rops, Rousseau, and a clinical vignette) occurring in it present unexpected connections both with each other and with the phenomenon they illustrate. There thus emerges a hidden scenario that reveals a concealed level of the text, relating to the maternal imago. Particular attention is devoted to the importance of the figurative apparatus and images (examples in the form of narrations and visual images, metaphors, and similes) that accompany the metapsychological and conceptual construction of Freud's text. Representation in visual form is necessary for the description and construction of the psyche and for conferring life on its conceptual formulations. However, metapsychological definition also reveals a phantasy dimension underlying the text. In addition, the author shows how certain textual constraints limit the intrinsic intuitive and arbitrary nature of interpretation. Finally, the complexity of the psychoanalytic text (with its various planes and levels) is emphasized, as well as the network of possible connections fundamental to the work of interpretation. A diagram illustrates the spatio-temporal aspects of the interpretive process, as defined by the interaction between conceptual factors and specific flights of the imagination which also have to do with unconscious affects, whether in the text, the author, or the reader.

Blending aesthetics and empirics: teaching health assessment in an art gallery.

An art gallery was used successfully as a clinical laboratory for nursing students studying health assessment. Art galleries provide students with a visually rich and stimulating environment that can support the development of astute visual inspection skills. Working in pairs, students examined artwork incorporating design elements common to both physical assessment and artistic inquiry. Students described new learning and clinical application through this innovative laboratory experience. Uniting traditionally empirical coursework with an aesthetic learning opportunity is important in the development of caring, humanistic professionals.

Gradiva: freud, fetishism, and Pompeian Fantasy.

This paper is a critical reconsideration of Freud's analysis (1907) of Wilhelm Jensen's novella Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy (1903). Freud's interest was aroused by the parallels between Jensen's presentation of dreams and Freud's model of dream formation just published in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud also acclaims Jensen's presentation of the formation and "cure" of his protagonist's delusion about a marble bas-relief of a woman walking. This paper argues for the centrality of the phenomenon of fetishism, briefly considered but excluded from Freud's analysis. The fantasy of Gradiva as "the necessary conditions for loving" (Freud 1910, pp. 165-166) is also a key thesis of the essay, which makes use of the newly translated Freud-Jensen correspondence contained in this article's Appendix.

"I'm still who I was" creating meaning through engagement in art: The experiences of two breast cancer survivors.

PURPOSE: The aim of this feasibility study was two-fold: i) develop lifelike torsos of two breast cancer survivors using innovative sculpting material and; ii) shed light on the meaning women give to the experience of breast cancer after viewing their sculpted torsos. METHODS: This collaborative initiative between nurse researchers and artists was situated within phenomenological inquiry. Two breast cancer survivors shared their bodies, as models, and stories of their cancer journey and the experience of modeling to create life-sized torsos of their bodies. KEY RESULTS: The participants articulated embodied knowing as each shared experiences of connectedness and relationship which culminated in the emergence of four core themes: The Landscape of Breast in Cancer; Red Shoes: The Re-claiming of Self; Liberation: towards an embodied self; and, Scars: Re-authoring Life. CONCLUSIONS: Active engagement in art through the use of one's body has the potential to open the door to healing, the generation of meaning and a reaffirmation of self.

Light and shadow in the life and work of Louise Nevelson.

The life and work of the artist Louise Nevelson are examined through the lens of her ideas about light and shadow. Nevelson developed several ways of dealing with a basic fault established in childhood. Some ideas of Christopher Bollas are used in understanding the artist's relationships with art dealers who served her as transformational objects. The artist became the grandmother of environmental sculpture in America and saw her work as a bridge between the third and the fourth dimension--an idealized realm and a popular concept in twentieth-century art that she related directly to light and shadow. Colette Roberts, a dealer with whom she worked, allowed Nevelson to arrive at a signature style. Arne Glimcher, who represented her for twenty-four years, provided the material and psychological comfort that allowed Nevelson to explore new materials and new styles and to arrive at aesthetic solutions of remarkable power and sophistication through her eighty-ninth year. From the time she met Roberts in 1953 until the end of her life thirty-five years later, Nevelson's ideas about light and shadow expressed not only her thoughts about visual perception but her experience of her mother as her original transformational object and unthought known.

Seis autores em busca da personagem Louise Bourgeois / Six authors in search of the character Louise Bourgeois

Este trabalho foi inspirado na peça Seis personagens à procura de um autor de Luigi Pirandello (1921), na qual ele descreve seu encontro inesperado com Fantasia, que insiste em lhe trazer personagens que ele não procurou e dos quais não consegue se livrar, para deles tirar novelas, romances e comédias. De forma semelhante os autores aqui presentes, cada um com seus mistérios, mas todos unidos pelo nascimento e evolução de uma experiência de anos de estudo em comum, esperam que as diversas Louise, com as quais se depararam também de forma inesperada, os deixem entrar no mundo de sua arte, fazendo delas, das suas paixões e de seus pensamentos e obras um belo trabalho de psicanálise. No início duvidaram da possibilidade de descobrir um sentido único da personagem, chegando a pensar se valia a pena dar-lhe vida além da que ela tivera. Entretanto, sendo Fantasia criatura de seus espíritos, já não tinham poder de lhe negar as vidas que imaginaram. Seis além da sua própria. Então, deixaram correr as ideias por onde costumam ir a fim de ganharem existência: para o texto. A proposta: cada um escrever sua Louise para ver o que acontece...

This work was inspired by Six characters in search of an author, a play by Luigi Pirandello (1921), in which he describes his unexpected meeting with Fantasy, who insists on bringing him characters he did not look for and is not able to get rid of, so as to derive stories, novels and plays from them. Similarly, the authors of this work, all of them with their own mysteries, but united by the formation and evolution of an experience of studying together along many years, wish that the different Louises, whom they also met unexpectedly, let them enter the world of their art, transforming them, their passions, thoughts and works into a beautiful work of psychoanalysis. In the beginning, they had doubts about the possibility to discover a univocal meaning of the character, and thought whether it was worth giving her life apart from the one she already had. However, since Fantasy was a creature of their spirits, they did not have the power to deny her the lives they imagined. Six lives apart from her own. Therefore, they let ideas run towards the place they usually go so as to gain existence: the text. The proposal: all of them writing their own Louise to see what happens...

Este trabajo fue inspirado en la pieza Seis personajes en búsqueda de un autor, de Luigi Pirandello (1921), en la que él describe su encuentro inesperado con Fantasía, que insiste en traerle personajes que él no buscó y de los que no logra librarse, para de ahí sacar cuentos, novelas y comedias. De modo semejante, los autores aquí presentes, cada uno con sus misterios, pero todos unidos por el nacimiento y evolución de una experiencia de años de estudios en común, esperan que las diversas Louise, con las que se depararon también de modo inesperado, los dejen entrar en el mundo de su arte, haciendo de ellas, de sus pasiones y de sus pensamientos y obras un bello trabajo de psicoanálisis. En el inicio, dudaron de la posibilidad de descubrir un sentido único del personaje, llegando a pensar si valía la pena darle vida más allá de la que había tenido. Sin embargo, siendo Fantasía creatura de sus espíritus, ya no tenían poder de negarle las vidas que imaginaron. Seis más allá de su propia. Así, dejaron correr las ideas por donde solían ir a fin de ganarse existencia: para el texto. La propuesta: cada uno escribir su Louise para ver qué pasa...