Background: News media coverage of antimask protests, COVID-19 conspiracies, and pandemic politicization has overemphasized extreme views but has done little to represent views of the general public. Investigating the public’s response to various pandemic restrictions can provide a more balanced assessment of current views, allowing policy makers to craft better public health messages in anticipation of poor reactions to controversial restrictions.Objective: Using data from social media, this infoveillance study aims to understand the changes in public opinion associated with the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions (eg, business and school closures, regional lockdown differences, and additional public health restrictions, such as social distancing and masking).Methods: COVID-19–related tweets in Ontario (n=1,150,362) were collected based on keywords between March 12 and October 31, 2020. Sentiment scores were calculated using the VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner) algorithm for each tweet to represent its negative to positive emotion. Public health restrictions were identified using government and news media websites. Dynamic regression models with autoregressive integrated moving average errors were used to examine the association between public health restrictions and changes in public opinion over time (ie, collective attention, aggregate positive sentiment, and level of disagreement), controlling for the effects of confounders (ie, daily COVID-19 case counts, holidays, and COVID-19–related official updates).Results: In addition to expected direct effects (eg, business closures led to decreased positive sentiment and increased disagreements), the impact of restrictions on public opinion was contextually driven. For example, the negative sentiment associated with business closures was reduced with higher COVID-19 case counts. While school closures and other restrictions (eg, masking, social distancing, and travel restrictions) generated increased collective attention, they did not have an effect on aggregate sentiment or the level of disagreement (ie, sentiment polarization). Partial (ie, region-targeted) lockdowns were associated with better public response (ie, higher number of tweets with net positive sentiment and lower levels of disagreement) compared to province-wide lockdowns.Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of a rapid and flexible method of evaluating the public response to pandemic restrictions using near real-time social media data. This information can help public health practitioners and policy makers anticipate public response to future pandemic restrictions and ensure adequate resources are dedicated to addressing increases in negative sentiment and levels of disagreement in the face of scientifically informed, but controversial, restrictions.

Staying in the intensive care unit (ICU) is often traumatic, leading to post-intensive care syndrome (PICS), which encompasses physical, psychological, and cognitive impairments. Currently, there are limited interventions available for PICS. Studies indicate that exposure to visual art may help address the psychological aspects of PICS and be more effective if it is personalized. We develop Machine Learning-based Visual Art Recommendation Systems (VA RecSys) to enable personalized therapeutic visual art experiences for post-ICU patients. We investigate four state-of-the-art VA RecSys engines, evaluating the relevance of their recommendations for therapeutic purposes compared to expert-curated recommendations. We conduct an expert pilot test and a large-scale user study (n=150) to assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of these recommendations. Our results suggest all recommendations enhance temporal affective states. Visual and multimodal VA RecSys engines compare favourably with expert-curated recommendations, indicating their potential to support the delivery of personalized art therapy for PICS prevention and treatment.

This study explored doll play activities involving adult doll collectors, and students who participated in an experimental story creation task which incorporated dolls/toy images and urban/landscape settings. It was expected that a secure versus insecure sense of self would perform a mediating role. The study involved two data collections: Online and Laboratory. Both phases used a 10 item questionnaire regarding participant’s sense of self. The online phase measured attitudes about fantasy and play, along with creative aspects of the doll hobby by adult collectors. The laboratory phase sought to determine whether doll play activity involving undergraduate students could be simulated in a laboratory setting. We found that in both samples, a positive correlation was found between insecure sense of self and fantasy proneness. This indicates that adult collectors and to an extent undergraduates may utilize fantasy (e.g., world building) and doll play as an act of defensive regression to resolve internal conflicts. Subsequently, a negative correlation between planning the doll aesthetic and fantasy proneness was found in the adult collectors’ sample, which may indicate regression in service of the self.

This study explored the episodic memories and therapeutic benefits associated with adult doll play. Forty adult collectors described a significant interaction they had with their dolls and interpreted the meaning of the episode. They rated both their narratives and interpretations on 7-point scales. Then they completed four questionnaires reflecting on their motivations for joining the doll hobby, the aesthetic and therapeutic aspects of doll play, as well as play and fantasy and self-perception questionnaires developed in an earlier study. Principal components factor analyses were performed on all scales and questionnaires, and the factors were correlated. In addition, the narratives and interpretations were coded and thematically analyzed. Results show that attachment forms with imagined and situated characters during the customization and story making process. This bonding process was critical in creating meaning and rituals within the ball-jointed doll hobby. Implications for the clinical field and AI mediated devices were discussed.

Numerous scholars, philosophers, and experts in aesthetics have underscored the profound significance of a life enriched by the presence of beauty. Consequently, the appreciation of aesthetic experiences is considered pivotal for achieving self-discovery and self-transcendence (Howell et al. 2017). Despite theoretical prominence, limited qualitative research has been conducted on this topic. To address this gap in research, this study’s objective emphasized two questions guiding the inquiry; What is the role of aesthetic encounters in aiding self-realization or individuation? and, how do these experiences foster self-transcendence? A thematic analysis was performed on the online interviews conducted ( N=25 ), and their results revealed seven themes pertaining to self-realization: a) Losing Yourself to Find Yourself; b) Relatability and Self-Reflection in Art; c) Identity as a Collection of Skills; d) Art as a Medium for Self-Expression and Acknowledgment; e) Aesthetic Genres and Taste as Identity; f) Belonging and Social Identity through Art; and g) Personal Interests and Choices in Artistic Consumption. Furthermore, seven themes for the second research question of self-transcendence were also discovered: a) Mother Nature’s Beauty; b) Intense, Passionate, and Overwhelming Experiences of Heightened Consciousness; c) Sacred Symbolism, Archetypal Imagery, and the Collective Unconscious; d) Collective Effervescence, Social Connection, and Shared Meaning; e) The ‘Profound’ Found in the Mundane; f) Feelings of Spiritual Elevation and Wellbeing; and g) Self-Referential Meaning-Making through Art. These findings evidenced the transformative potential of aesthetic experiences, shedding light on the facets of personal growth and meaning that individuals derive from such encounters.