Forsythe Alex, Williams Tamsin, Reilly Ronan G
Department of Psychology, University of Liverpool.
Tees, Esk, and Wear Valleys NHS Trust, Vale of York.
Neuropsychology. 2017 Jan;31(1):1-10. doi: 10.1037/neu0000303.
The notion that artistic capability increases with dementia is both novel and largely unsupported by available literature. Recent research has suggested an emergence of artistic capabilities to be a by-product of involuntary behaviour seen with dementia, as opposed to a progression in original thinking (de Souza, et al., 2010). A far more complementary explanation comes from Hannemann (2006), who suggests that art offers an outlet for dementia patients to refine and sharpen their cognitive abilities. As dementia severely impedes linguistic skills, non-verbal therapeutic methods such as painting can permit dementia patients to express themselves in a way not possible verbally. Fractal analysis has been used to determine the authenticity of major works of art. Taylor et al., (1999) found that through a fractal analysis of Jackson Pollock's paintings it was possible to distinguish authentic works from a large collection of fakes, demonstrating that when artists paint they instill within their work their own pattern of unique fractal behaviour. Can age-indexed variations in the fractal dimension of the works of artists anticipate specific cognitive deteriorations?
To answer this question we analysed age-related variations in the fractal dimension of a large corpus of digital images (n = 2092) of work created by seven notable artists who experienced both normal ageing and neurodegenerative disorders.
The results of our analysis showed that patterns of change in the fractal dimension of the paintings differentiated artists who suffered neurological deterioration from those of normal aging controls.
These findings are of importance for two reasons. Our work adds to studies that demonstrate that fractal analysis has the potential to determine the provenance of paintings. Secondly, our work suggests that may be possible to identify a-typical changes in the structure of an artist's work; changes that may be early indicators of the onset of neurological deterioration. (PsycINFO Database Record
认为艺术能力会随着痴呆症而增强这一观点既新颖，又在很大程度上未得到现有文献的支持。最近的研究表明，艺术能力的出现是痴呆症患者出现的非自主行为的副产品，而非原始思维的进展（德索萨等人，2010年）。一个更具补充性的解释来自汉内曼（2006年），他认为艺术为痴呆症患者提供了一个提升和磨练其认知能力的途径。由于痴呆症严重阻碍语言技能，绘画等非语言治疗方法可以让痴呆症患者以一种无法通过言语实现的方式表达自己。分形分析已被用于确定主要艺术作品的真伪。泰勒等人（1999年）发现，通过对杰克逊·波洛克的画作进行分形分析，有可能从大量赝品中辨别出真迹，这表明艺术家在绘画时会在作品中注入自己独特的分形行为模式。艺术家作品的分形维数随年龄的变化能否预测特定的认知衰退？
为回答这个问题，我们分析了由七位经历了正常衰老和神经退行性疾病的著名艺术家创作的大量数字图像（n = 2092）的分形维数与年龄相关的变化。
我们的分析结果表明，画作分形维数的变化模式区分了患有神经退化的艺术家和正常衰老对照组的艺术家。
这些发现之所以重要有两个原因。我们的研究为证明分形分析有潜力确定画作出处的研究增添了内容。其次，我们的研究表明有可能识别艺术家作品结构中的非典型变化；这些变化可能是神经退化开始的早期指标。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》
