Art experiences and sense-making throughout developmental stages

Art plays a crucial role in fostering self-reflection and supporting children's emotional and cognitive development (Kozhemyakin, 2018). By encouraging them to perceive and (re-)imagine their surroundings, art creates opportunities for meaningful experiences (Terreni, 2010; van Kuyk, 2011). This study investigates the development of children's sense-making processes and the role of emotions during art experiences using a multi-method approach (Schino et al., 2022). As part of the project "Let's get S.M.A.R.T. – The research project of Sense-Making and ART", participants (N=106, aged 6-51) were invited to the experiment and to bring a friend, classmate, or sibling that would like to co-participate with them. Both came to the lab or a partner location (e.g.: a school partner, the participants' homes), bringing two artworks that are meaningful to them. Participants filled in questionnaires and talked about their artworks during dyadic conversations. Focusing on four cumulative semiotic strategies – perception, imagination, conceptualization and analysis (van Heusden, 2015) - the conversations were coded to assess these strategies’ usage. Hypotheses predicted that younger participants would use more concrete strategies, while older participants would engage into more abstract ones. Preliminary results showed that the imaginative strategy decreases with age. However, perceptive, conceptual and analytical semiotic strategies revealed correlation with age. Visual analyses of State-Space Grids (SSGs, Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006) based on seven representative dyads (one each from the following age groups: 6, 9, 12-15, 17, 22, 30, 51 y.o.) indicated mixed patterns for children and teenagers but consistent use of conceptual and analytical strategies among adults. This may hint at a developmental shift from perceptual and imaginative to conceptual and analytical semiotic strategies influenced by cultural knowledge and experience. Results emphasize the need for further research with larger samples and varied methods to refine our understanding of sense-making with art across development.