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The present study examined whether scaling direction and perceptual modality affect children's spatial scaling. Children aged 6-8 years (N = 201) were assigned to a visual, visuo-haptic, and haptic condition in which they were presented with colourful, embossed graphics. In the haptic condition, they were asked to wear a blindfold during the test trials. Across several trials, children were asked to learn about the position of a target in a map and to localize a disc at the same location in a referent space. Scaling factor was manipulated systematically, so that children had to either scale up or scale down spatial information. Their absolute deviations from the correct target location, reversal and signed errors, and response times served as dependent variables. Results revealed higher absolute deviations and response times for the haptic modality as opposed to the visual modality. Children's signed errors, however, showed similar response strategies across the perceptual conditions. Therefore, it seems that a functional equivalence between vision and touch seems to emerge slowly across development for spatial scaling. With respect to scaling directions, findings showed that absolute deviations were affected by scaling factors, with symmetric increases in scaling up and scaling down in the haptic condition. Conversely, children showed an unbalanced pattern in the visual conditions, with higher accuracy in scaling down as opposed to scaling up. Overall, our findings suggest that visibility seems to factor into children's scaling process.

We tested whether viewing an exhibition of works by artists with visual impairments had a positive effect on the attitudes of children viewing it towards individuals with blindness. The study involved children (N = 226) aged 4-6 divided into three groups: (1) who viewed the exhibition in the art gallery with a guide, (2) who viewed the exhibition in the art gallery on their own, (3) tested in a pre-school, without viewing the exhibition and without any knowledge about the exhibition (the control condition). We controlled participants' gender and their familiarity with individuals with blindness. All children were asked to assess their attitude towards the persons who are blind (using a thermometer of feelings). Moreover, the children who visited the gallery assessed to what extent they liked the exhibition. We showed that visual art might be a tool for social change as the young gallery visitors had more positive attitudes towards people who are blind than children who did not view the exhibition. However, art activism affected pre-school children's attitudes towards individuals with blindness only when young visitors explored the exhibition on their own.

Introduction: This paper investigates the question of whether or not subjects who are congenitally blind experience greater difficulties mentally in resizing images of objects than those who have low vision or are adventitiously blind. Methods: Two experiments were conducted--one in which subjects were asked to mentally enlarge objects they previously explored manually, and one in which subjects were tested for the ability to demonstrate the change in the size of an object imagined to be moving away. Three groups of high school students with visual impairments took part in the experiment: congenitally blind, "late blind," and those with low vision. Results: When showing the linear size of an object enlarged in their imagination, congenitally blind participants overestimated its size more frequently than those who were late blind. The degree of mental reduction of the size of an object imagined to be moving away was comparable for all groups. Discussion: The results suggest that the difficulties experienced by congenitally blind participants with the mental resizing of objects may be related to problems with performing mental scaling transformations. In the low vision group, the etiology of the subjects' visual impairment was not taken into consideration. The group turned out to be heterogeneous with respect to imagery processes. Implications for practitioners: When using models for explaining new concepts, it is important to ensure that congenitally blind learners understand the change of scale.

In the current study, the influence of the physical context and the knowledge of artworks on the aesthetic experience of installation art is tested for the first time. We assessed non-experts in the field of art (N = 158) who viewed interactive installations in either the art gallery context or the classroom. Some participants knew both the artworks' titles and the curator descriptions, some knew only the titles, and some had no contextual information. We tested both the aesthetic emotions and the aesthetic judgments. For the measurement of aesthetic emotions, we used the Self-Assessment Manikin approach including the traditional dimensions of affect and the measurement of recently-proposed dimensions such as origin or subjective significance. The study replicated previous findings that the gallery context enhances the aesthetic experience - both of art appreciation and aesthetic emotions. Moreover, our results showed that the emotions caused by viewing the installation in the gallery had more of an automatic source (metaphorically coming 'from the heart') and were more subjectively significant than aesthetic emotions experienced in the classroom context. Curatorial information increased the understanding and appreciation of the works of installation art, and also caused the aesthetic emotion to be more positive and more intensive; while having knowledge about the titles did not influence the aesthetic experience., Author(s): Magdalena Szubielska [sup.1] , Kamil Imbir [sup.2] , Anna Szymanska [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.37179.3b, 0000 0001 0664 8391, Institute of Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of [...]

Introduction: The aim of this study was to determine whether individuals with congenital blindness make more recognizable drawings of known objects that are furniture sized (table, man, tree) rather than hand sized (egg, coconut, banana; Hypothesis 1). We also investigated whether knowledge that the tactile drawings had been produced by people who are blind increased judges' perceptions of their recognizability (Hypothesis 2). Methods: The raised-line drawings were made by children and teenagers who are blind and had no prior experience in tactile graphics. After a minimal initial training in line drawing, the subjects were asked to draw six objects from memory. The judges used a 7-point Likert-type scale to assess recognizability. All objects were identified for the judges prior to their assessment. One group of judges was told that the drawings they were assessing were made by persons who are blind, while the second group was informed that the drawings were made without the use of sight. Results: The real-life size of the objects depicted in the drawings affected judges' perception of their recognizability. Depictions of hand-sized objects were found to be less recognizable than were depictions of furniture-sized objects. Knowledge of the artists' blindness had no effect on the judgments of recognizability. Discussion: Hypothesis 1 was confirmed, which suggests that individuals with congenital blindness have more difficulty in creating drawings of hand-sized objects than they did creating drawings of furniture-sized objects. Hypothesis 2 was not confirmed, which is inconsistent with the results of previous research in which the awareness of the artists' disability status influenced the assessment of the artworks. Although the present research focused on recognizability, the issue in earlier research was aesthetic judgment. Implications for practitioners: Although few people would question the importance of illustrations in books for sighted children, the value of tactile graphics and the benefits of engaging children who have visual impairments in making and exploring raised-line drawings are not always understood. Full participation in subjects that rely on visual information such as geometry, art, and geography by learners who are born blind requires access to tactile graphics. Basic training in raised-line drawing may be sufficient for some children, particularly those who are older (aged 10 years or more), with congenital blindness who have never drawn before to create from memory recognizable drawings of known objects, especially larger objects.

The current study investigated spatial scaling of tactile maps among blind adults and blindfolded sighted controls. We were specifically interested in identifying spatial scaling strategies as well as effects of different scaling directions (up versus down) on participants' performance. To this aim, we asked late blind participants (with visual memory, Experiment 1) and early blind participants (without visual memory, Experiment 2) as well as sighted blindfolded controls to encode a map including a target and to place a response disc at the same spot on an empty, constant-sized referent space. Maps had five different sizes resulting in five scaling factors (1:3, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1, 3:1), allowing to investigate different scaling directions (up and down) in a single, comprehensive design. Accuracy and speed of learning about the target location as well as responding served as dependent variables. We hypothesized that participants who can use visual mental representations (i.e., late blind and blindfolded sighted participants) may adopt mental transformation scaling strategies. However, our results did not support this hypothesis. At the same time, we predicted the usage of relative distance scaling strategies in early blind participants, which was supported by our findings. Moreover, our results suggested that tactile maps can be scaled as accurately and even faster by blind participants than by sighted participants. Furthermore, irrespective of the visual status, participants of each visual status group gravitated their responses towards the center of the space. Overall, it seems that a lack of visual imagery does not impair early blind adults' spatial scaling ability but causes them to use a different strategy than sighted and late blind individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes, from a first-person female perspective, the experience of an autism diagnosis in adulthood and the attempt to cope with it and build a new identity through visual art. Once again, it has been shown that contemporary art, by publically presenting minority experiences, can be an ideal tool for discourse on socially up-to-date issues and may cause a change in attitudes. Therefore, the artistic activism of minority representatives is vital. In the last few years, more and more autistic women worldwide have been diagnosed in adulthood. Many autistic females are not understood by the social environment or even therapists – because knowledge of autism is mainly built on its male phenotype. Autistic women diagnosed in (late) adulthood are trying to build their new autistic identity in various ways, including creative and artistic actions. Art activities seem beneficial in meaning-making the experience of being on the spectrum. Publicly displaying one's artistic creations addressing the topic of autism is a form of social activism and may result in challenging stereotypes– as shown in this article by the example of the exhibition of a female artist on the spectrum in a contemporary art gallery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural variations in psychological processes are well recognized by cross-cultural psychology. Cultural products—including the visual arts—present one medium through which people may manifest their dominant culture. The present research investigates the appreciation of visual arts cross-culturally by hypothesizing and testing a cultural-match effect (i.e., people tend to appreciate same-culture artworks more than they appreciate different-culture artworks). Additionally, the present work considers the factors of historical period and art medium that have been overlooked in previous research. A mixed 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 design, 97 Western and 91 Eastern naïve viewers from Poland and Hong Kong were presented with 128 visual artworks varying in artwork culture (West vs. East), historical period (traditional vs. contemporary), and art medium (painting vs. mural). In a repeated measures fashion, the participants evaluated each artwork in terms of art identification, liking, understanding, and familiarity, and their art expertise and art interest were also measured. Supporting the hypothesis, the Polish group tended to appreciate Western (i.e., same-culture) artworks more than Eastern (i.e., different-culture) artworks. However, contrary to our prediction, the Hong Kong group also tended to appreciate Western (i.e., different-culture) artworks more than Eastern (i.e., same-culture) artworks, and that might be attributed to the Western influence Hong Kong had received during its British colonial years. Furthermore, cultural-match effect did not readily generalize across historical periods nor across art media. Potential confounding of art expertise and art interest as well as limitations and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested the relationship between art classification and liking of the graffiti murals among naive viewers (N = 60 college students). Graffiti murals were classified as art to a lesser extent than both abstract and representational paintings. Surprisingly, graffiti murals were only liked less than representational but not abstract paintings. Thus, art classification might not necessarily predict liking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This special double issue of Annals of Psychology is dedicated to the memory of Professor Piotr Francuz (1960-2020). In this editorial, we introduce the person of the Professor and present the initiatives commemorating him that have taken place over the past year. One of his most significant achievements was the initiation of the Perception and Cognition Lab at KUL, where experimental neurophysiological and behavioural research has been conducted in various areas of cognitive psychology. These basic and applied studies are currently continued by the Professor's associates. The current special issue contains articles on diverse topics in which the authors--his collaborators and friends--adopt various theoretical perspectives and apply distinctive paradigms. This multi-faceted perspective corresponds with the wide range of Prof. Francuz's scientific interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]