Neuroscience
As Alzheimer's disease wipes out a person's identity, their taste in art can remain stubbornly, wonderfully, intact. Andrea Halpern and colleagues hope their finding will bring encouragement to carers of people with the disease.
Seventeen healthy older adults and sixteen older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease were asked to place three sets of eight art post-cards in order of preference. One set depicted representational paintings (e.g. Hopper's People in the Sun), another set depicted quasi-representational paintings (e.g. Picasso's Weeping Woman), while the final set featured abstract art (e.g. Mondrian's Composition).
Two weeks later, the same participants were asked to once again arrange the cards in order of preference. There was relatively little change in the order the cards were put in, regardless of the type of art, and remarkably, the participants with Alzheimer's showed as much stability in their preferences as the healthy participants.
A second experiment with 20 controls and 20 Alzheimer's patients repeated the exact same procedure except that a recognition test for the pictures was included at the second session. The memory test showed that the patients had completely forgotten the pictures and yet, as in the first experiment, their aesthetic preference for the art showed the same stability as did the healthy participants'.
"In judging artworks," the researchers concluded, "people with and without dementia really do know what they like."
The researchers speculated that art preference may remain intact in people with Alzheimer's because aesthetic taste is based on procedural, implicit mental processes rather than the explicit, declarative processes that are so devastated by the disease. However, the patients tested here had mild dementia, so more research is needed to establish whether art preference is also preserved in people with more severe dementia.
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HALPERN, A., LY, J., ELKIN-FRANKSTON, S., O'CONNOR, M.G. (2008). "I Know What I Like": Stability of aesthetic preference in alzheimer's patients. Brain and Cognition, 66(1), 65-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.008
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Alzheimer's patients retain their taste in art
As Alzheimer's disease wipes out a person's identity, their taste in art can remain stubbornly, wonderfully, intact. Andrea Halpern and colleagues hope their finding will bring encouragement to carers of people with the disease.Seventeen healthy older adults and sixteen older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease were asked to place three sets of eight art post-cards in order of preference. One set depicted representational paintings (e.g. Hopper's People in the Sun), another set depicted quasi-representational paintings (e.g. Picasso's Weeping Woman), while the final set featured abstract art (e.g. Mondrian's Composition).
Two weeks later, the same participants were asked to once again arrange the cards in order of preference. There was relatively little change in the order the cards were put in, regardless of the type of art, and remarkably, the participants with Alzheimer's showed as much stability in their preferences as the healthy participants.
A second experiment with 20 controls and 20 Alzheimer's patients repeated the exact same procedure except that a recognition test for the pictures was included at the second session. The memory test showed that the patients had completely forgotten the pictures and yet, as in the first experiment, their aesthetic preference for the art showed the same stability as did the healthy participants'.
"In judging artworks," the researchers concluded, "people with and without dementia really do know what they like."
The researchers speculated that art preference may remain intact in people with Alzheimer's because aesthetic taste is based on procedural, implicit mental processes rather than the explicit, declarative processes that are so devastated by the disease. However, the patients tested here had mild dementia, so more research is needed to establish whether art preference is also preserved in people with more severe dementia.
_________________________________
HALPERN, A., LY, J., ELKIN-FRANKSTON, S., O'CONNOR, M.G. (2008). "I Know What I Like": Stability of aesthetic preference in alzheimer's patients. Brain and Cognition, 66(1), 65-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.008
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Alzheimer's Disease Progression
Measuring Alzheimer disease progression with transition probabilities: Estimates from NACC-UDS Curr Alzheimer Res. 2011 Nov 28; Spackman DE, Kadiyala S, Neumann PJ, Veenstra DL, Sullivan SD Abstract Objectives: Estimate the probabilities, for Alzheimer's...
- Computerized Cognitive Testing: A New Cogstate Paper
Reliability of repeated cognitive assessment of dementia using a brief computerized battery American Journal of Alzheimers Disease and Other Dementias. 2011 Jun; 26(4): 326-333. Hammers D, Spurgeon E, Ryan K, Persad C, Heidebrink J, Barbas N, Albin R,...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Alzheimer Drug Regimens & Delivery Systems
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