Is there evidence for the use of art therapy in treatment of psychosomatic disorders,eating disorders and crisis? A comparative study of two different systems for evaluation

A comparative study of two different systems for evaluation. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 47-53. As with any type of treatment the requirement for evidence based practice (EBP) has also affected art therapy (AT) when used as an intervention. This review evaluates the available evidence for using AT for psychosomatic disorders, eating disorders and crisis. The search in Cochrane, Best Practice, AMED, CINAHL, PION, PsycINFO and PubMed from 1987 until now resulted in a huge number of articles but only 32 articles met our criteria for evaluations. The articles were assessed with two evaluation systems, the GRADE system used by the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment (SBU) and the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF/Task Force). When comparing the results we found that the GRADE evaluation system rejected the quality in 84% of the 32 studies and the USPSTF/Task Force 41% of these studies. An evidence base for AT was found only according to the criteria of USPSTF/Task Force. Hence, the evidence concept is not explicit, which means that effective treatments run a risk of not being implemented in health care. We suggest a broader view of what constitutes evidence in order to make it possible to include different types of research designs and methods.     

In the grip of fear: Dissociations in attentional processing of animal fearful individuals

Using a modified attention paradigm we investigated specific attentional mechanisms in processing animal feared stimuli. In this paradigm arrays of four pictures were displayed and after its disappearance from view a probe (a letter, X or P) then followed unpredictably in the location of one of the four pictures. The results showed that discriminations of probes tended to be impeded by spider stimuli, compared to snake stimuli. This effect was potentiated by high anxiety but only for those individuals fearful of spiders, since no such effect was observed for snake fearful individuals. Moreover, the discrimination of the probes was not facilitated when presented after the feared stimuli. The implications of these findings are discussed as a function of the cognitive bias involved in specific fear.     

Using facial emotional stimuli in visual search experiments: The arousal factor explains contradictory results

For more than two decades, visual search experiments using pictures of emotional faces as stimuli have generated contradictory results. Evidence of a superior detection of angry faces compared to happy faces have been mixed with an equal amount of evidence in the opposite direction. In this article, we review this literature, and examine the hypothesis that the neglected stimulus factor of emotional arousal may explain these contradictory results. Through an extensive reanalysis of results from our own laboratory as well as from other researchers, we show that the arousal factor systematically influences the outcome of the reviewed visual search experiments, and may thus provide a key to the historical contradictions within this research field.     

The Face of Wrath: Critical Features for Conveying Facial Threat

We examined the role of different facial features (shape of eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose, and the direction of gaze) in conveying the emotional impact of a threatening face. In two experiments, a total of 100 high school students rated their impression of two sets of schematic faces in terms of semantic differential scales (Activity, Negative Evaluation, and Potency). It was found that the different facial features could be ordered hierarchically, with eyebrows as the most important feature, followed by mouth and eyes. Eyebrows thus fundamentally categorised faces as threatening or nonthreatening. The different shapes of mouth and eyes provided subsequent categorisations of faces within these primary categories.     

Neuropsychological aspects of driving after a stroke—in the simulator and on the road

Thirty patients with stroke and 30 matched controls participated in the study (mean age 68 years, mean interval since stroke onset 8.6 months). The patients performed significantly worse on cognitive and attentional processing measured by a neuropsychological test battery. The patients had significantly greater difficulty in allocating processing resources to a secondary information processing task during driving in an advanced simulator. The patients performed worse driving in real traffic, and had less driving skill; fifty per cent did not pass the driving test. The neuropsychological test battery showed a pattern with three factors: (1) attentional processing (2) executive capacity, and (3) cognitive processing. Regression models based on simulator driving variables and neuropsychological test variables respectively, overall classified correctly in 85% and 83% of the cases with respect to driving skill. Decreased cognitive and attentional processing were suggested to be associated with an overall speed impairment. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Swedish adaptation of the Emotional Contagion Scale: factor structure and psychometric properties

The Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) is a self-report scale used to measure individual differences in susceptibility to converge towards the emotions expressed by others. The original American ECS (Doherty, 1997), translated into Swedish, was completed by 665 undergraduate students in two independent samples (N = 233 and N = 432, respectively). To investigate the factor structure of the ECS, confirmatory factor analyses of alternative models derived from previous research in emotion and emotional contagion were conducted. The results showed that the proposed one-dimensional structure of the ECS was not tenable. Instead a multi-facet model based on a differential emotions model and a hierarchal valence/differential emotions model was supported. Cross-validation on the second independent sample demonstrated and confirmed the multi-faceted property of the ECS and the equality of the factor structure across samples and genders. With regard to homogeneity and test-retest reliability, the Swedish version showed acceptable results and was in concordance with the original version.     

The face in the crowd revisited: a threat advantage with schematic stimuli

Schematic threatening, friendly, and neutral faces were used to test the hypothesis that humans preferentially orient their attention toward threat. Using a visual search paradigm, participants searched for discrepant faces in matrices of otherwise identical faces. Across 5 experiments, results consistently showed faster and more accurate detection of threatening than friendly targets. The threat advantage was obvious regardless of whether the conditions favored parallel or serial search (i.e., involved neutral or emotional distractors), and it was valid for inverted faces. Threatening angry faces were more quickly and accurately detected than were other negative faces (sad or "scheming"), which suggests that the threat advantage can be attributed to threat rather than to the negative valence or the uniqueness of the target display.     

Neural computation as a tool to differentiate perceptual from emotional processes: The case of anger superiority effect

Research findings in social and cognitive psychology imply that it is easier to detect angry faces than happy faces in a crowd of neutral faces [Hansen, C. H., & Hansen, R. D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd – An anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 917–924]. This phenomenon has been held to have evolved over phylogenetic development because it was adaptive to quickly and accurately detect a potential threat in the environment. However, across recent studies, a controversy has emerged about the underlying perceptual versus emotional factors responsible for this so-called anger superiority effect [Juth, P., Lundqvist, D., Karlsson, A., & Ohman, A. (2005). Looking for foes and friends: Perceptual and emotional factors when finding a face in the crowd. Emotion, 5(4), 379–395; Purcell, D. G., Stewart, A. L., & Skov, R. B. (1996). It takes a confounded face to pop out of a crowd. Perception, 25(9), 1091–1108]. To tease apart emotional and perceptual processes, we used neural network analyzes of human faces in two different simulations. Results show that a perceptual bias is probably acting against faster and more accurate identification of anger faces compared to happy faces at a purely perceptual level. We suggest that a parsimonious hypothesis related to the simple perceptual properties of the stimuli might explain these behavioral results without reference to evolutionary processes. We discuss the importance of statistical or connectionist analysis for empirical studies that seek to isolate perceptual from emotional factors, but also learned vs. innate factors in the processing of facial expression of emotion.     

Concepts from research literature and practical assessment of risk awareness: The Swedish driving test from the perspective of cognitive psychology

The Swedish driving test (SDT) was compared to theoretical concepts found in research literature (CRLs) with respect to the rated importance of the CRLs for the overall assessment of risk awareness and the five specific assessment areas used in the SDT. 116 traffic inspectors responded to questionnaires. Results show that visual search was the CRL given the highest rating, and that the assessment of risk awareness can be conceptualised as assessment of lower-order and higher-order cognitive functions. The assessment areas taxing higher-order cognitive functions were rated as most important for risk awareness, and visual search behaviour can be regarded as the best indicator of higher-order cognitive skills.     

Some animal specific fears are more specific than others: Evidence from attention and emotion measures

Using a visual search methodology we investigated the effect of feared animal stimuli on attention. Our results confirmed the important role of emotion on attention. All participants detected fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) faster than neutral (mushrooms) ones against a background of fruits. In addition, spider fearful participants were sensitized specifically to detect their feared stimulus (spiders), compared to their fear-relevant but non-feared (snakes) and neutral stimuli. However, for participants fearful of snakes there was no significant difference in detection latencies between the feared (snakes) and the fear-relevant but non-feared animal stimuli (spiders). The results from the attention task were mirrored in the emotional ratings, which showed that spider fear was highly specific, whereas snake fear was associated with a more generalized enhanced evaluation of all negative stimuli.