Art and Memory: An Examination of the Learning Benefits of Visual-Art Exposure

<p>Past research has indicated that art education can be beneficial to students' education, possibly through beneficial effects related to learning and memory. Although some prior research has explored effects of art education for children, relatively little research has investigated beneficial effects of art in relation to adult learners. The aim of the current study was to explore whether a beneficial relationship exists between art and memory for adults in the context of an experimental study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: Engaging in creative art, viewing art, discriminating among visually presented shapes, and writing a description of their current classes. Following each condition, participants were presented a series of words and later asked to recall the words in a cued-recall task. Results revealed that memory performance was better in the engagement in art condition relative to the other three conditions. The results of this study are discussed in the context of cognitive mechanisms related to both memory and attention.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Rosier, James Tyler

Contributors dc:contributor

• Karen Naufel
• Janie Wilson

• ETD
• Art exposure
• Art Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/436

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1436