Abstract
Aesthetic responses associated with viewing visual art have recently been shown to have positive effectsfor people with dementia. The current exploratory study investigated how structured viewing of paintingsin a public art gallery, followed by an art-making visual response, might affect cognition. Through anovel use of audio recordings and content analysis, utilizing a mixed-methods pre-post design with4-week follow-up, the study sought to explore if art viewing and art making, in an art gallery setting, hadan impact on episodic memory and verbal fluency. The findings suggested that episodic memory couldbe enhanced through aesthetic responses to visual art, although effects on verbal fluency were moreambiguous. Family caregivers (FC), who were also part of the study, substantiated these findings but alsoreported that their family member with dementia showed improved mood, confidence, and reducedisolation during the art gallery sessions. The results support the need for additional research to furtherinvestigate the potential positive impact of visual art and aesthetic stimulation on people with a dementia.Keywords: aesthetics, content analysis, dementia, verbal fluency, episodic memorySupplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027499.supp
Highlights
We presented 30 projected images to each participant, one half created by professional artists and the other half by people with dementia who had participated in the contemporary educational art program described above
For each of the 15 images created by people with dementia who participated in the educational art program, we calculated the proportion of experts who attributed the image to a professional artist, as well as the 95% confidence interval of these proportions
The goal of this study was to determine whether experts attribute a series of images created by people with dementia who were participating in a program of contemporary art education to artists or to people without prior artistic experience
Summary
Kinnsey and Rentz (Kinney & Rentz, 2005), expanding a previous pilot work (Rentz, 2002), assessed seven domains of well-being while subjects were participating in an art program for people with earlyonset or mid-stage dementia designed to promote self-expression through the visual arts. They compared the well-being observed in the same individuals while participating in more traditional activities of the day center.
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