Perceptual and Cognitive Skills Related to Art Knowledge and Expertise

How does art expertise through creation and appreciation relate to perceptual and cognitive skills? Previous research suggests that visual arts training may improve attention and observational skills. Little research has investigated whether visual arts appreciation similarly facilitates perceptual skill development. We administered a study (N = 132) containing online and in-person samples assessing how art expertise and engagement relate to a battery of measures, including visual attention, working memory, creativity, mental rotation, emotion recognition, empathy, and mental imagery. Additionally, we assessed art expertise and knowledge with questionnaires and two drawing tasks measuring skill and creativity. Drawing skill was positively correlated to mental rotation, performance on the out-of-focus-images (OOFI) task, and creativity. Art knowledge was also correlated to the OOFI-task, but was additionally related to emotion recognition skills, and to vividness of imagery. These results suggest that both art creation and appreciation may be differentially linked to enhanced perceptual and cognitive skills.