Mental health is relevant to every individual. Poor mental health and well-being contribute significantly to personal suffering and a substantial burden on society. Art and cooking therapies in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are flexible approaches that emphasize engagement and growth to promote mental health and well-being, are easy to perform, accessible when needed, and can be self-administered. This review aims to explore art and cooking therapies focusing on intervention protocols, target populations, underlying mechanisms, limitations, and areas for future research. The literature search was conducted in PubMed, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar databases using predefined search terms. A total of 26 randomized controlled trials, 19 in art therapy, and seven in cooking therapy were included. Art and cooking therapies are promising interventions to improve mental health and well-being. They promote mindfulness and provide opportunities for self-expression and social support which can be explored in future studies and therapeutic settings.

Viewing artworks through virtual reality (VR) offers a unique experience, yet understanding how individual traits and motivations affect this process requires further exploration. In this study, we empirically examined the factors influencing aesthetic experiences when viewing artworks in VR. We conducted two experiments using a between-subjects design with VR and 2D videos based on a virtual tour of the Sydney Opera House and an artistic interpretation of Vincent van Gogh's paintings as stimuli. Our moderated mediation analyses identified two pathways through which VR influences aesthetic experiences: a cognitive pathway and an affective pathway. The cognitive pathway reveals that VR enhances the sense of agency and immersion, enriching the aesthetic experience for individuals with a high affinity for technology. The affective pathway shows that VR increases narrative transportation and immersion, enhancing the aesthetic experience particularly for those with strong hedonic motivations.

The primary aim of this research is to investigate the immediate influence of students’ personal experiences and their degree of interest in traditional dances of the Philippines in relation to preservation efforts. Respondents for the study are students from a higher education institution in the Philippines. After obtaining data and performing multiple regression analysis, it was observed that overall personal experience has a direct influence to level of interest. Moreover, students’ personal experience has a direct influence to their interest towards dance steps and costumes, except music and dance history. Therefore, offering a wide range of varied and substantial activities students is imperative, commencing from early education through to their tertiary education years, to enhance enthusiasm and involvement in the safeguarding of these intangible cultural heritages. Limitations and recommendations for physical education teachers in the higher education sector, institutional projects and collaborative efforts, and future research directions are also presented.

Recent evidence suggests that the artwork of an experienced artist is usually more expensive than that of a beginner. Additionally, the artwork of a man is often more expensive than that of a woman, and a painting is typically more expensive than graphics. However, this research aims to contrast the influence of the author's age and sex on the price with the influence of the artwork's material and technique. This idea is based on Roland Barthes’ famous philosophical doctrine about the death of the author, which appeared in 1968 and remains relevant today. In our article, this doctrine is tested for the art market. The research question posed is whether the author's influence dies in relation to their artwork after its creation or whether the artwork begins to live its own life without the author. To answer this question, a study was conducted comparing the impact on auction prices of the artist's biography and the characteristics of the artwork. The artist's biography inevitably determines their creativity and affects their art, while the characteristics of the artwork are not directly related to the personality of the author but are important from a consumption standpoint. Several dozen features were identified and divided into author and artwork characteristics. For author characteristics, demographic features such as sex and nationality were used, as well as biographical features such as education and migration. Artwork characteristics included size, material, technique, provenance, author's signature and frame, mentions in scientific literature, etc. By applying hedonic regression on a unique collected dataset of more than 15,000 artworks by the most expensive authors sold at world-famous auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's, it was determined which characteristics have the greatest influence on price and which specific features are most important.

The present study tested the effect of title type on the aesthetic evaluation of Japanese poetry. Ninety participants read a Japanese poem presented with either a “descriptive” title, an “elaborative” title, or no title. Participants then gave ratings according to their aesthetic experiences on the poem. The results revealed that the title type significantly influenced the readers’ aesthetic evaluations. Specifically, descriptive titles promoted more thought about the poem compared to elaborative titles. This finding can be attributed to the enhanced processing fluency afforded by descriptive titles, which allows readers to more readily understand and grasp the key characteristics of the poem, thereby facilitating thought evocation. These results extend previous findings on the influence of titles on the aesthetic appreciation of paintings and music to the domain of poetry. Furthermore, they highlight the role of processing fluency in possibly mediating the relationship between title type and aesthetic evaluation.

There is a high interest in art's change potential towards sustainability. Yet, there is still a lot unknown about this change potential, including from the perspective of artists themselves. The research questions, thus, are: Do artists who create climate-related art have goals and target audiences regarding their climate-related work? If so, which goals and audiences do they aim for, and why? 30 interviews with artists having been born or living in the United Kingdom, United States of America or Germany were conducted and analyzed. A framework of eco-social change was applied to the interview transcripts, and artists’ goals and audiences were analyzed through thematic analysis. The research finds that artists have a desire for societal impact and wider audiences, but some also have narrower audiences and smaller changes in mind. Moreover, some artists engage in an impact reflexivity about not only the potential but also the limits of their practice.