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In this study, we compared the psychological and psychophysiological benefits of coloring to drawing as a means of distraction versus expression. Participants were 60 undergraduates who experienced an anxiety induction. We then randomly assigned them to color a design, draw a design (distract), or draw to express their negative thoughts and feelings. Anxiety was measured before and after the anxiety induction and after drawing. Heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and skin conductance were measured throughout the testing session. Finally, participants completed a flow and enjoyment questionnaire. All three activities reduced anxiety and decreased heart rate and increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia with no differences across conditions. Those in the draw a design condition enjoyed the activity more than those in the draw to express condition. We conclude that drawing, regardless of emotion regulation strategy used, reduces anxiety but that distracting graphic activities result in more enjoyment.

The attentional demands of drawing require both local processing of an object’s details and global processing of its overall structure. In this study, we examined the extent to which artists have superior local and global processing skills, how these skills relate to artists’ ability to draw realistically and to autistic-related traits, and whether artists initially take a local or global approach to drawing. Forty first-year college art students and 41 nonart students completed two tasks assessing local processing and two tasks assessing global processing. Participants completed two drawing tasks that assessed their ability to draw realistically, two copying tasks that assessed whether they showed a preference for initially copying the local or global aspects of an object, and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient that assessed autistic-related traits. We found that art students outperformed nonart students on both the local and global processing tasks and that drawing ability was related to performance on these tasks. We also found that art students were more likely than nonart students to initially copy the global features in their drawings. Finally, we found that art students did not exhibit more autistic-related traits than nonart students and that the number of autistic-related traits was unrelated to performance on the local and global processing, drawing, or copying tasks. These results suggest that art students have an attentional flexibility that allows them to process information at a local and global level but that they have a preference for initially drawing globally.

© 2019 American Psychological Association. A growing body of correlational research has revealed systematic relationships between various aspects of visuospatial processing and representational drawing ability. However, very few studies have sought to examine the longitudinal development of the relation between drawing and visuospatial ability. The current investigation explored change in drawing and visuospatial skill in art students taking a foundational drawing course (N = 42) in a longitudinal design. Measures of representational drawing skill, dispositional traits, and visuospatial skill were taken at three time points over the course of 5 months. The findings reveal improvements in representational drawing, mental rotation, disembedding figures, and attentional switching. However, individual differences in change over time on one task did not predict change in another, revealing implications for domain-specific and domain-general aspects of art and design expertise. ispartof: Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts vol:15 issue:1 pages:1-15 status: Published online

We argue for a wide range of innate differences in ability in any domain, and that children with high levels of ability in a particular domain share three characteristics: they learn rapidly (precocity), they are intensely driven to learn (a rage to master), and they learn differently from typical children (they march to their own drummer). In the visual arts, high levels of ability have been most often noted in the ability to draw realistically. We show that this ability is independent of IQ and present some evidence that this ability is related to local processing skill. We also note one case study of a child who showed all three characteristics of giftedness but whose drawings were abstract rather than realistic. Thus it is possible that there are two routes that gifted child artists follow―one the early representational/realism route and the other the early abstraction route. We conclude the chapter by discussing our recommendations for how artistically gifted children should be taught and present the Reggio Emila approach in Italy as an excellent approach to the education of both typical and gifted children.

Precocious realists are children who are able to create realistic drawings that resemble those of adult artists. Is this talent a splinter skill, or is it associated with other kinds of high abilit...

While the benefit of distraction over expression as an emotion regulation strategy has been shown, it is not clear whether this benefit generalizes across a range of activities. To find out, we compared distraction versus expression in drawing, writing, talking, and thinking to oneself. We induced a negative mood in 160 participants by asking them to visualize an upsetting experience. Participants were randomly assigned to an emotion regulation strategy (express or distract) and an activity (draw, write, talk, or think). Positive and negative affect was measured before and after the mood induction and after the activity. Distraction boosted positive affect more than did expression for the draw and think activities, but distraction lowered negative affect more than did expression for all four activities. We conclude that distraction is a more effective emotion regulation strategy than expression in improving mood especially for activities that involve drawing and thinking.

We examined whether using drawing to distract, by either coloring a design or drawing a design, improves mood more than drawing to express feelings. We manipulated levels of cognitive demand in the first 2 conditions by asking participants to color a design (low cognitive demand) or draw a design (high cognitive demand). After a sad mood induction, we randomly assigned 70 participants to coloring, drawing, or drawing to express thoughts and feelings. Affect was measured before and after the mood induction and after drawing. Participants also reported on their level of enjoyment and flow when drawing. Both distraction conditions, regardless of level of cognitive demand, improved affect. Whereas those in both the coloring and drawing conditions enjoyed the activity more than the drawing to express condition, only the coloring condition resulted in greater states of flow.

© 2018 American Psychological Association. The question of whether and how visual artists see the world differently than nonartists has long engaged researchers and scholars in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Yet as evidence regarding this issueaccumulates, it has become clear that the answers to these questions are by no means straightforward. With a view to advancing ongoing debate in this field, the current study aimed to replicate and extend previous research by exploring the differences in visual-spatial ability between art students (n = 42) and nonart students (n = 37), using a comprehensive battery of visual-spatial and drawing tasks. Art students outperformed nonart students on drawing measures and some (but not all) visual-spatial tasks. This nuanced pattern of results broadly supports the notion that art students differ from nonart students in their ability to exert top-down control over attentional processing, but not in the phenomenology of low-level visual processing. Implications for theories of artistic expertise are discussed. ispartof: PSYCHOLOGY OF AESTHETICS CREATIVITY AND THE ARTS vol:13 issue:1 pages:58-73 status: published

We examined the benefits of a single session of narrative and poetry writing to determine the immediate effects of each on mood and flow. Following a sad mood induction, we randomly assigned participants to a narrative versus poetry format and to an express versus a distract condition. We measured affect before and after writing and asked participants to complete a flow and enjoyment questionnaire after writing. The distract condition improved affect (by increasing positive and decreasing negative affect) more than did the express condition, regardless of writing format. The poetry format resulted in greater enjoyment than the narrative format, but flow did not differ by condition. Results show that, parallel to findings with drawing, writing to distract is a more effective means of mood improvement than writing to express, at least in the short term. Distraction appears to be the driving force leading to greater mood improvement, regardless of writing format.

In a pilot study we investigated whether the most effective medium for regulating short-term affect depends on one's preference for drawing or writing, and also investigated the emotion regulation strategy (distraction versus expression) spontaneously chosen when drawing and writing. Eighty undergraduates indicated their preference for drawing or writing. After a sad mood induction, half were assigned to their preferred activity and half to their non-preferred activity. Positive and negative affect was assessed before and after the activity, and participants reported whether they used the activity to express or to distract themselves. Negative affect was significantly lower after drawing than after writing, even when the preferred activity indicated was writing. Participants were more likely to use drawing to distract and writing to express.

Some young children are able to create stunningly realistic drawings resembling those of adult artists. What perceptual abilities underlie this talent? This study examined two candidate skills on which adult artists excel: the ability to segment a complex form mentally (measured by the Block Design Task) and the ability to see hidden forms (measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test). Sixty-seven 6- to 13-year-olds with a wide range of drawing abilities completed these tasks as well as an IQ test and an observational drawing task. While children who scored high on drawing realism outperformed those who scored low in drawing realism on both perceptual tasks, only detection of embedded figures predicted drawing realism. This occurred independently of age, gender, years of training, and verbal and non-verbal IQ. There are certainly many contributors to this complex ability, but one component appears to be the tendency to see things more as they really are and thereby recognize the continuous contour of an object despite interference from other overlapping objects.

This study challenges the prevailing assumption that superior local processing is specific to autism spectrum diagnosis and suggests instead that such processing skill is a function of realistic drawing talent. Fifteen children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 15 without ASD made an observational drawing scored for level of drawing realism and completed 2 tasks that allowed for the assessment of a local processing bias: the Block Design Task in unsegmented and segmented form at three levels of perceptual cohesiveness (minimal, intermediate, and maximal), and the Group Embedded Figures Test. Drawing realism score, not ASD diagnosis, predicted performance on the unsegmented version of the Block Design Task and on the most difficult items—the unsegmented maximally cohesive items. Accuracy on the Group Embedded Figures Test was also more strongly associated with level of drawing realism than ASD diagnosis. Thus, the superior local processing seen in ASD may be due to the drawing talent so often present in those with ASD.

in the distraction condition they were asked to draw an image unrelated to the film (a house). In Study 2 we induced a negative mood by asking participants to think of the saddest event they had experienced and then assigned them to one of three conditions: venting, distraction, and sitting - a new condition in which participants just sat quietly. This latter condition allowed us to assess the effect of passage of time. In both studies, positive and negative affect were measured before and after the assigned activity. In both studies, mood improved significantly more in the distraction than in the venting or sitting condition. We argue that the mood elevating effects of art-making are stronger when art is used to distract than when used to vent.

Although one study has reported that 6% of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have drawing talent, no study has examined the incidence of drawing talent in typical children. We asked 153 children aged 6–12 years to draw a picture of their hand. We scored the drawings for the use of detail, correct proportion, and overall contour; assessed the drawings as above average at each age based on a global assessment; and compared the drawings with those of three identified drawing prodigies. Most children were able to capture the overall contour of their hand; the ability to draw relevant details was not common until age 8; and correct proportion was not seen even in the oldest children. We identified 13% of drawings as above average for the child’s age group. However, even those drawings identified as above average were significantly less realistic than the drawings of the prodigies.

Two opposing theories have been proposed to account for the strong visuospatial performance often seen in high-functioning individuals with autism. According to the weak central coherence account, individuals with autism show a local processing bias. They have a superior grasp of the local details of a visual display but fail to grasp global aspects of the display (Happé & Frith, 2006). According to the enhanced perceptual functioning account, individuals with autism have superior local processing as well as intact global processing (Mottron & Burack, 2001). We report a case study of J.G., a 10-year-old child of normal intelligence diagnosed with autism. He experienced expressive language delay, but showed special talents in both drawing and visual imagery. Our tests revealed that J.G. had superior local but poor global processing. This pattern of performance provides stronger support for weak central coherence than for enhanced perceptual functioning.

This study examined the effects of expressive media (drawing versus writing) and emotion regulation strategy (coping by venting versus coping by distraction) on short-term mood repair. After inducing a sad mood in 40 participants, the researchers randomly assigned them to one of two conditions: drawing or writing. Mood valence was assessed before and after the activity, and participants reported whether they used the activity to vent or to distract themselves. Findings indicated that mood valence was significantly more positive after drawing than writing, and more positive when individuals reported using distraction rather than venting to regulate their emotions. Drawing in this study was a more effective means of immediate mood repair than writing; both activities repaired mood more effectively through distraction than through venting.

A local processing bias has been found in individuals with autism as well as in typical children with a gift for drawing realistically. This study investigated whether a local processing bias in typical adults is more strongly associated with drawing realism or autistic-like traits. Forty-two adults made an observational drawing (scored for realism), completed four measures that assessed a local processing bias, and completed the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) which assesses autistic-like traits. Drawing Realism score and not AQ score was associated with a local processing bias as shown by performance on two of the tasks. Typical adults who score high in the ability to draw realistically show the same kind of local processing bias found in individuals with ASD.

We examined two ways in which drawing may function to elevate mood in children-venting (expressing negative feelings) and distraction (expressing something unrelated to the negative feelings). We examined the effectiveness of drawing as an emotion regulator when drawing is used to vent versus distract (Study 1) and tested whether the effects found are specific to the activity of creating one's own drawing or generalisable to a drawing activity in which children had to copy another's drawing (Study 2). To induce a negative mood, we asked children to think of a disappointing event. Mood was assessed before and after the assigned activity. In both studies, mood improved significantly more in the distract than in the vent or copy condition. Study 1 demonstrates that drawing improves mood in children via distraction and not via venting. Study 2 demonstrates that this effect is specific to a drawing task in which an image is freely constructed. When a copying task is used, the effect disappears.

This study evaluated the potential benefits of a centrally acting selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, sertraline, versus placebo for prevention of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in burned children. This is the first controlled investigation based on our review of the early use of a medication to prevent PTSD in children.Twenty-six children aged 6-20 were assessed in a 24-week double-blind placebo-controlled design. Each child received either flexibly dosed sertraline between 25-150 mg/day or placebo. At each reassessment, information was collected in compliance with the study medication, parental assessment of the child's symptomatology and functioning, and the child's self-report of symptomatology. The protocol was approved by the Human Studies Committees of Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Hospitals for Children.The final sample was 17 subjects who received sertraline versus 9 placebo control subjects matched for age, severity of injury, and type of hospitalization. There was no significant difference in change from baseline with child-reported symptoms; however, the sertraline group demonstrated a greater decrease in parent-reported symptoms over 8 weeks (-4.1 vs. -0.5, p=0.005), over 12 weeks (-4.4 vs. -1.2, p=.008), and over 24 weeks (-4.0 vs. -0.2, p=0.017).Sertraline was a safe drug, and it was somewhat more effective in preventing PTSD symptoms than placebo according to parent report but not child report. Based on this study, sertraline may prevent the emergence of PTSD symptoms in children.

We investigated whether typically-developing children with a gift for drawing realistically show the local processing bias seen in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty-seven 6-12 year-olds made an observational drawing (scored for level of realism) and completed three local processing tasks, and parents completed the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test (CAST). Drawing score predicted local processing performance on all tasks independently of verbal IQ, age, and years of art lessons. Drawing score also predicted more frequent repetitive behaviors as assessed by the CAST. Thus, skill in realistic drawing is associated with a strong local processing bias and a tendency towards repetitive behaviors, showing that traits found in individuals with ASD irrespective of artistic talent are also found in typically developing children with artistic talent.

A local processing bias in the block design task and in drawing strategy has been used to account for realistic drawing skill in individuals with autism. We investigated whether the same kind of local processing bias is seen in typically developing children with unusual skill in realistic graphic representation. Forty-three 5–11-year-olds who drew a still life completed a version of the block design task in both standard and segmented form, were tested for their memory for the block design items, and were given the Kaufmann Brief Intelligence Test-II. Children were classified as gifted, moderately gifted or typical on the basis of the level of realism in their drawings. Similar to autistic individuals, the gifted group showed a local processing bias in the block design task. But unlike autistic individuals, the gifted group showed a global advantage in the visual memory task and did not use a local drawing strategy; in addition, their graphic realism skill was related to verbal IQ. Differences in the extent of local processing bias in autistic and typically developing children with drawing talent are discussed.

The current research was designed to identify subgroups among dating couples based on individual characteristics and a couple's dyadic pairing that contribute to the risk for male perpetration of sexual aggression and female victimization.Heterosexual dating couples (N = 164) were recruited from a large university. They separately completed measures assessing the frequency of sexually aggressive acts perpetrated by the male partner (revised Conflict Tactics Scales), hazardous alcohol use (AUDIT-C), alcohol expectancies (shortened Alcohol Expectancies Questionnaire), emotional commitment, and relationship length.A two-step cluster analyses revealed two distinct subgroups of dating couples. Dating partners in Cluster 2, compared with Cluster 1, were less emotionally committed, in a shorter relationship, engaged in more hazardous alcohol use, possessed stronger alcohol expectancies, and were younger. Further, male partners in Cluster 2 perpetrated more sexual aggression, sexual coercion, and threatened/forced sex compared with men in Cluster 1.Using cluster analytic techniques, this study extended past research by identifying individual and couple-level characteristics that contributed to the risk for male sexual aggression perpetration and female victimization. Younger couples in the early stages of a dating relationship, who are less committed to each other, and who are both engaging in hazardous drinking and possess stronger alcohol expectancies are more at risk. Including a discussion in prevention programs that make individuals cognizant of not only their own but also their partner's characteristics as a risk for sexual aggression and coercion might provide young adults with better skills to assess risky situations.