This study investigated the structural dimensions and profile patterns of artistic expression in student visual works using expert ratings on seven evaluative indicators. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two latent constructs – Authorial Meaning Integration (symbolic saturation, narrative integration, emotional expressiveness, authorial presence, aesthetic intentionality) and Harmony of Stylistic Form (stylistic coherence, aesthetic orientation) – explaining 72.7% of total variance. The results indicate that youth artistic creativity is organized around interrelated but distinguishable meaning-oriented and stylistic-formal dimensions, rather than a single undifferentiated construct. The prominence of meaning integration highlights the central role of symbolic, narrative, and emotional processes in youth artistic expression, while stylistic harmony reflects the developing organization of formal and perceptual aspects of visual work. Together, the findings provide an empirically grounded and developmentally sensitive framework for understanding youth artistic creativity, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between meaning-making and stylistic organization in visual expression.
AcarS.CevikE.FesliE.BozkurtR. N.KaufmanJ. C. (2024). Testing the domain specificity of creativity with Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale: A meta-analytic confirmatory factor analysis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 58(1), 171–189. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.641
2.
AmabileT. M. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(5), 997–1013. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.5.997
3.
ArnheimR. (1974). Art and visual perception: A psychology of the creative eye (Rev. ed.). University of California Press.
4.
BarbotB. (2018). The dynamics of creative ideation: Introducing a new assessment paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2529. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02529
BrunerJ. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press.
9.
CicchettiD. V. (1994). Guidelines, criteria, and rules of thumb for evaluating normed and standardized assessment instruments in Psychology. Psychological Assessment, 6(4), 284–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.6.4.284
10.
CostelloA. B.OsborneJ. W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 10(7), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.7275/jyj1-4868
11.
CupchikG. C.WinstonA. S. (1996). Confluence and divergence in empirical aesthetics, philosophy, and mainstream psychology. In FriedmanM. P.CarteretteE. C. (Eds.), Handbook of perception and cognition: Cognitive ecology (2nd ed., pp. 61–85). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012161966-4/50005-0
12.
DamasioA. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. Harcourt College Publishers.
13.
EcoU. (1976). A theory of semiotics. Indiana University Press.
ForthmannB.PaekS.DumasD.BarbotB.HollingH. (2020). Scrutinizing the basis of originality in divergent thinking tests: On the measurement precision of response propensity estimates. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(3), 683–699. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.v90.3
16.
FreedbergD.GalleseV. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(5), 197–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003
GaoC.LiuC. (2024). How do processing fluency, expectation, and epistemic goals influence aesthetic judgment? A perspective of multi-model integration. Advances in Psychological Science, 32(11), 1872. https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1042.2024.01872
19.
GigerenzerG. (2008). Rationality for Mortals: How people cope with uncertainty. Oxford University Press.
20.
GombrichE. H. (1960). Art and illusion: A study in the psychology of pictorial representation. Princeton University Press.
21.
González-ZamarM.-D.Abad-SeguraE. (2021). Emotional creativity in art education: An exploratory analysis and research trends. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), 6209. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126209
22.
HermansH. J. M.KempenH. J. G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. Academic Press.
23.
JungC. G. (1964). Man and his symbols. Doubleday.
24.
KaufmanJ. C.BeghettoR. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four C model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688
25.
KenettY N (2018). Going the extra creative mile: The role of semantic distance in creativity-Theory, research, and measurement. In JungR. E.VartanianO. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of the neuroscience of creativity (pp. 233–248). Cambridge University Press.
26.
KooT. K.LiM. Y. (2016). A guideline of selecting and reporting intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 15(2), 155–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012
27.
KozbeltA.BeghettoR. A.RuncoM. A. (2010). Theories of creativity. In KaufmanJ. C.SternbergR. J. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 20–47). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511763205.004
28.
LederH.BelkeB.OeberstA.AugustinD. (2004). A model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments. British Journal of Psychology, 95(4), 489–508. https://doi.org/10.1348/0007126042369811
29.
LongH.KerrB. A.EmlerT. E.BirdnowM. (2022). A critical review of assessments of creativity in education. Review of Research in Education, 46(1), 288–323. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X221084326
30.
LunaB.PadmanabhanA.O’HearnK. (2010). What has fMRI told us about the development of cognitive control through adolescence?Brain and Cognition, 72(1), 101–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2009.08.005
31.
McCloudS. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. William Morrow Paperbacks.
32.
MeadG. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. University of Chicago Press.
33.
MutterY.HübnerR. (2024). The effect of expertise on the creation and evaluation of visual compositions in terms of creativity and beauty. Scientific Reports, 14, 13675. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-64494-7
34.
NanayB. (2023). Mental imagery: Philosophy, psychology, neuroscience. Oxford University Press.
35.
PariserD.ZimmermanE. (2004). Learning in the visual arts: Characteristics of gifted and talented individuals. In EisnerE.DayM. (Eds.), Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp. 379–405). Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
PariserD.ZimmermanE. (2010). Art and human development. Routledge.
37.
PelowskiM.MarkeyP. S.GollerJ.FörsterE. L.LederH. (2019). But, how can we make “art?” Artistic production versus realistic copying and perceptual advantages of artists. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 13(4), 462–481. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000178
38.
ReberR.SchwarzN.WinkielmanP. (2004). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience?Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364–382. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
39.
RostanS. M. (1998). A study of the development of young artists: The emergence of an artistic and creative identity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 32(4), 278–301. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1998.tb00822.x
40.
RostanS. M. (2005). Educational intervention and the development of young art students’ talent and creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 39(4), 237–261. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2005.tb01260.x
41.
RostanS. M. (2010). Studio learning: Motivation, competence, and the development of young art students’ talent and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 22(3), 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2010.503533
42.
RostanS. M.PariserD.GruberH. E. (2002). A cross-cultural study of the development of artistic talent, creativity, and giftedness. High Ability Studies, 13(2), 125–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359813022000048789
SawyerR. K. (2012). Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
46.
ScarinziA. (Ed.). (2015). Aesthetics and the embodied mind: Beyond art theory and the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy (Vol. 73). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9379-7
47.
ScherbakovaA.BaharA. K. (2025). Development and validation of the Scale of Aesthetics and Creativity in Chess (SACC). Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1545846
SilviaP. J.WintersteinB. P.WillseJ. T.BaronaC. M.CramJ. T.HessK. I.MartinezJ. L.RichardC. A. (2008). Assessing creativity with divergent thinking tasks: Exploring the reliability and validity of new subjective scoring methods. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2(2), 68–85. https://doi.org/10.1037/1931-3896.2.2.68
VaisvaserS.KingJ. L.OrkibiH.AleemH. (2024). Neurodynamics of relational aesthetic engagement in creative arts therapies. Review of General Psychology, 28(3), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680241260840
54.
WinnerE. (1996). Gifted children: Myths and realities. Basic Books.
55.
YooJ.JaskoK.WinkielmanP. (2024). Fluency, prediction and motivation: How processing dynamics, expectations and epistemic goals shape aesthetic judgments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 379(1895), 20230326. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0326
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
