Can persons with schizophrenia appreciate visual art?

The way schizophrenia patients perceive the world is largely mysterious. Understanding and appreciating the visual world begins with the perception of basic visual features, which is altered in this mental disorder. Yet, the roles basic visual features play in functional activities such as appreciation of art are unclear. This study examined the effects of visual feature manipulation on beauty perception of art in schizophrenia patients (n = 29) and in normal controls (n = 30). Three pieces of art – The Starry Night (Van Gogh), Mona Lisa (Da Vinci) and a natural landscape photograph (anonymous) – were manipulated in terms of their coloration (removal of color), spatial frequency content (low or high-frequency pass) and visual noise level (with added noise). Subjects judged the beauty of the original and visual-feature-manipulated artworks by rating each piece individually (1 to 7) and by ranking all pieces from most to least beautiful. For the three original art pieces, averaged ratings and rankings were similar in patients and controls. However, when the visual features of the original pieces were manipulated, changes in the beauty ratings were significantly smaller in patients. The reduced sensitivity to visual feature manipulations suggests that the modulation of basic visual signals, often used for vivid and dynamic expressions in art, may be under-appreciated in schizophrenia.