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- Creators: Department of Psychology
Description
This project aims to help with the stigma and mystery surrounding mental health through the combination of art and psychology. The project was created by first interviewing individuals with different disorders and then researching the disorders further to acquire an accurate idea of the experiences of those afflicted. Then paintings were created to depict the emotions and struggles faced by individuals with psychological disorders. The project focusses on five different abnormal disorders: Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. These particular ailments were chosen because they include the main diagnoses that the average American thinks of when mental health is mentioned. My thesis contains interviews that I personally conducted, descriptions of the five disorders included, and artistic representations of those disorders in the form of oil paintings. It is my hope that this project will help unafflicted individuals to better understand others who live with abnormal psychological disorders, as well as help the afflicted see themselves represented in a way that they otherwise might not.
ContributorsSanchez Rodriguez, Wendy (Author) / Solis, Forrest (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Human perceptual dimensions of sound are not necessarily simple representations of the actual physical dimensions that make up sensory input. In particular, research on the perception of interactions between acoustic frequency and intensity has shown that people exhibit a bias to expect the perception of pitch and loudness to change together. Researchers have proposed that this perceptual bias occurs because sound sources tend to follow a natural regularity of a correlation between changes in intensity and frequency of sound. They postulate that the auditory system has adapted to expect this naturally occurring relationship to facilitate auditory scene analysis, the tracking and parsing sources of sound as listeners analyze their auditory environments. However, this correlation has only been tested with human speech and musical sounds. The current study explores if animal sounds also exhibit the same natural correlation between intensity and frequency and tests if people exhibit a perceptual bias to assume this correlation when listening to animal calls. Our principal hypotheses are that animal sounds will tend to exhibit a positive correlation between intensity and frequency and that, when hearing such sounds change in intensity, listeners will perceive them to also change in frequency and vice versa. Our tests with 21 animal calls and 8 control stimuli along with our experiment with participants responding to these stimuli supported these hypotheses. This research provides a further example of coupling of perceptual biases with natural regularities in the auditory domain, and provides a framework for understanding perceptual biases as functional adaptations that help perceivers more accurately anticipate and utilize reliable natural patterns to enhance scene analyses in real world environments.
ContributorsWilkinson, Zachary David (Author) / McBeath, Michael (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Rutowski, Ronald (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Language is powerful. The words we use define our perceptions. They label what we see and paint a picture for those with whom we are communicating. Words serve as heuristic when assigning value to an object, experience, or person. My thesis, Eye of the BeholdHer, focuses on the language used in American pop-culture to describe women. I comment on the dehumanization of women through the use of animal names used to describe personality, appearance, and genitalia, as well as the way the English language implies domestication and inferiority of women through the use of the certain words. Examples include, but are not limited to: bitch , chick, pussy, beaver, cougar, catty, heifer, old bat, mousy, foxy, and vixen. Eye of the Behold(her) reflects upon my observations and calls for social change. Eye of the BeholdHer is a call for action. It is time to make conscious word choices and realize the impact words have on shaping our society. It is time for us to empowHer through words.
ContributorsGibly, Sophia (Author) / Maxwell, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Ellsworth, Angela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
My work focuses on the themes of grief, closure, and celebration of life. Life is a catalyst both celebration and grief. Feeling joy when a life is introduced is as common as feeling pain when a life is lost. When I lost my maternal grandmother nearly a year ago, I felt grief accompanied with guilt. I never got a chance to say goodbye since we lived so far apart, her residing in the Philippines and me residing in the United States. In order to get rid of these negative emotions, I sought closure. I attended her funeral, and now I want to celebrate her life through my artwork.
My work comes in two parts: an illustration book titled The Butanding and an illustration exhibition. The book will be published through lulu.com and made available to the public. The exhibition component will be held from March 2nd to March 6th in Gallery 100 as part of my senior exhibition Post Pre-Production with six other colleagues in the School of Art. The illustration book is a narration of a little girl and her growing friendship with a whale shark. The overarching theme of the creative project is closure with the passing away of loved ones.
The Butanding is a narrative illustration book about a young girl befriending the local menace of her village, the whale shark. Similar to my own experience, the main subject—the young girl—of my narrative is shown suffering from grief and guilt over her grandmother’s death. My work illustrates a progression of the young girl’s emotional state as she goes on a journey with the whale shark or locally known in the Philippines as the “butanding”. It provides the scenario of a grieving individual who gets the chance to reconnect with a deceased loved one and rebuild relationships that were lost.
My work comes in two parts: an illustration book titled The Butanding and an illustration exhibition. The book will be published through lulu.com and made available to the public. The exhibition component will be held from March 2nd to March 6th in Gallery 100 as part of my senior exhibition Post Pre-Production with six other colleagues in the School of Art. The illustration book is a narration of a little girl and her growing friendship with a whale shark. The overarching theme of the creative project is closure with the passing away of loved ones.
The Butanding is a narrative illustration book about a young girl befriending the local menace of her village, the whale shark. Similar to my own experience, the main subject—the young girl—of my narrative is shown suffering from grief and guilt over her grandmother’s death. My work illustrates a progression of the young girl’s emotional state as she goes on a journey with the whale shark or locally known in the Philippines as the “butanding”. It provides the scenario of a grieving individual who gets the chance to reconnect with a deceased loved one and rebuild relationships that were lost.
ContributorsSydiongco, Hannah Gloria (Author) / Solis, Forrest (Thesis director) / Drum, Meredith (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The goal of this thesis was to create a theory of change for an annual Multicultural Arts Camp (MAC) that offers youth with trauma histories opportunities to cultivate protective factors associated with resilience. MAC is designed to promote four primary protective outcomes among its participants: (1) safety, (2) self-expression, (3) skill-building and (4) self-efficacy through exploration of various multicultural art forms and connecting with caring adults. The theory of change was informed by my observations during my experience as a MAC volunteer and my review of academic literature to better define and understand how various factors involved in the MAC program are linked to resilience processes. Arts programming can provide opportunities for youth who have experienced trauma to feel safe enough to engage in self-expression and build corresponding skills that promote feelings of self-efficacy. Building these protective factors thereby strengthens children’s capacity for resilience. Accordingly, the theory of change articulates program activities and processes that promote these outcomes among participating youth. Program directors may draw on the theory of change for strategic planning and evaluation efforts assessing the program’s processes and corresponding impact.
ContributorsJanss, Alena Lilia (Author) / Sechler, Casey (Thesis director) / Foster, Stacie (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Psychology and dance both shed light on the question: how do our personal, life experiences affect our movement? This document introduces elements from psychology and dance through associative learning, attachment styles, muscle patterning, and partner improvisation as ways of exploring this question. It aims to briefly introduce these theories and explain how they had a role in the research of the creative project. It also documents the inception, creation, and production of Lullabye, a dance work intended to be accessible to an audience with little to no experience viewing concert dance, with the target audience specifically being the writer’s mother. It has three sections, each featuring a different element of dance, storytelling, and individuality. It starts a conversation on how emotions and thoughts related to personal experiences can affect our movement.
ContributorsTello Solano, Carlos (Co-author, Co-author) / Kaplan, Robert (Thesis director) / Montoya, Yvonne (Committee member) / Schupp, Karen (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Art history, while vast in scope, is a male-dominated topic. Textbooks predominantly feature male artists, and generally when artists look to the “masters,” they look to men. Although the field is becoming more diverse every day, this discrepancy in what is taught to young artists can have a profound impact on how and why art is produced. As a young female artist who is focused on my own self-identity and developing a body of work, I look to other women in art, past and present, to orient myself in the context of art history. I am interested in how these women came to terms with their identity in a field that acknowledges them less than their male counterparts, and how their self-perception is reflected in their work. Researching other women in art—for example, how do these artists extrapolate from the world around them to create, and how does their work affect their own self-identity? —has gradually shifted the way I looked at myself. Witnessing other female artists be bold with self-portraiture or brave with their honesty through art has shaped how I view myself and how I want to create art. Through employing self-portraiture in my creative practice, this project aims to utilize my personal experiences and perspectives to contemplate the way I engage with my own identity.
ContributorsWelch, Rachel (Author) / Solis, Forrest (Thesis director) / Hogden, Heidi (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
My creative project involved the creation of a short, abstract animation set to EDM music. It's meant to mimic the graphics displayed in the background of EDM concerts and was inspired by Beeple and the graphics he designed for EDM artist, Zedd. Under the guidance of my director, Meredith Drum, and with help from my second committee member, Muriel Magenta, I was able to use Audacity to edit the music, Autodesk Maya 2016 to model and animate the animation, the HIDA render farm to render the frames using Maya Software and mentalray, Adobe After Effects CC to assemble and edit the animation, and Adobe Media Encoder to export the end product. The final animation included 20,855 individual frames, totaling to 14 minutes and 28 seconds in length. The project takes the viewer through seven worlds to express the idea of feeling isolated in your home, exploring the world, and then returning home with a new perspective. Each world evokes a different emotion through the interaction of its visual and audio design to allow the viewer to experience the intended storyline without explicit characters or plot detail. Due to the importance of maintaining plot flow, I utilized beautiful, yet difficult, design elements including glass textures, ocean shaders, and paint effects to create drastically different world designs specific to each song. These songs were chosen from a variety of EDM artists and edited to flow together seamlessly through each world and evoke a different emotion. Throughout the thesis process, I gained more skills in animation and editing and greatly improved my ability to use each application. While there is plenty of room to grow, I have improved exponentially as an artist from when I began this project to the moment I completed it.
ContributorsMallik, Ajanta Angie (Author) / Drum, Meredith (Thesis director) / Magenta, Muriel (Committee member) / The Design School (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The desire for normalcy is constant, regardless of how unattainable one knows it is. As it seems, the harder one tries for a normal life, the harder it becomes to find it. The more life I experience, the more I realize that normalcy is a construct, completely based in generalizable concepts. Normal will vary from person to person, and even within that, life always provides plenty of deviations from the norm. Within those deviations lies trauma. Trauma is difficult to handle, period. It is even more difficult to handle alone. You Can't Cry While Drinking (Coffee) follows a collegiate arts student as she strives for normalcy while dealing with her mother's terminal diagnosis. This piece focus on alienation, mental health, relationships between women, and the damage that ignoring trauma can cause. It views her actions through the lens of comedy, as laughter can convey a vast and accessible range of emotions. Throughout my college career, I have gone through a significant amount of life stressors, beyond the traditional college work load. Instead of becoming overcome with grief from the traumas I have dealt with, I decided to analyze my life from an outside perspective, taking pieces to share with others. In my observations and experience, sharing stories of hardships with others is mutually beneficial. It allows the individual to come to terms with what they have experience while allowing others to not feel alone if they are struggling with their own lives. There is a considerable amount of comfort in the realization that one does not have to go through traumatic experiences alone. This creative project was performed March 2nd through the 5th. The public exposure was a substantial portion of the process, as sharing trauma was integral to the study of this thesis.
ContributorsGalbiati, Tess Angeline (Author) / Scott, Jason (Thesis director) / Eckard, Bonnie (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Anthropomorphic animal characters are common in animation, but there is limited data on the factors that contribute to such a trend. I studied how animated animals in popular movies look and behave like humans, and what that indicates about us that we prefer them that way. My study was conducted via literature review, film review, facial measurements, and the creation of my own character. I discovered the physical importance of eyes in proportion to the rest of the face and the emotional importance of those animals acting as metaphors for us as humans.
ContributorsEhuan, Ariana Jade (Author) / Adamson, Joni (Thesis director) / Drum, Meredith (Committee member) / Fisher, Rebecca (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12