A computer system for art therapy assessment of elements in structured mandala

Abstract

This paper delineates the development of a computer system designed to automatically rate elements of art assessment in structured mandala, provide the results in the form of quantitative data, and thus facilitate the decision making process of human experts. Based on the analysis of the color-related basic elements by computerized digital image processing, the system deduces information on the color-related applied elements from an appropriately constructed knowledge base. Also, the system rates the degree of concentration involved in the activity of structured mandala coloring: the degree of concentration is suggested as a new element which is believed to determine the effectiveness of structured mandala as an art therapy tool. In this study, we devise an algorithm to objectively rate the completeness and accuracy of the coloring, and formulate a regression model whose dependent variable is the degree of concentration rated by human experts and whose independent variables are the color-related elements, completeness, and accuracy. Some important variables are selected by stepwise regression, and their relative effects on the degree of concentration are determined by standardized regression. The proposed system is validated by showing the consistency between the results obtained by human experts and those obtained by the system through examples. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.