Bereket A. Yilma

Bereket A. Yilma, Luis A. Leiva

Artwork recommendation is challenging because it requires understanding how users interact with highly subjective content, the complexity of the concepts embedded within the artwork, and the emotional and cognitive reflections they may trigger in users. In this paper, we focus on efficiently capturing the elements (i.e., latent semantic relationships) of visual art for personalized recommendation. We propose and study recommender systems based on textual and visual feature learning techniques, as well as their combinations. We then perform a small-scale and a large-scale user-centric evaluation of the quality of the recommendations. Our results indicate that textual features compare favourably with visual ones, whereas a fusion of both captures the most suitable hidden semantic relationships for artwork recommendation. Ultimately, this paper contributes to our understanding of how to deliver content that suitably matches the user's interests and how they are perceived.

Bereket A. Yilma, Luis A. Leiva

Art Therapy (AT) is an established practice that facilitates emotional processing and recovery through creative expression. Recently, Visual Art Recommender Systems (VA RecSys) have emerged to support AT, demonstrating their potential by personalizing therapeutic artwork recommendations. Nonetheless, current VA RecSys rely on visual stimuli for user modeling, limiting their ability to capture the full spectrum of emotional responses during preference elicitation. Previous studies have shown that music stimuli elicit unique affective reflections, presenting an opportunity for cross-domain recommendation (CDR) to enhance personalization in AT. Since CDR has not yet been explored in this context, we propose a family of CDR methods for AT based on music-driven preference elicitation. A large-scale study with 200 users demonstrates the efficacy of music-driven preference elicitation, outperforming the classic visual-only elicitation approach. Our source code, data, and models are available at https://github.com/ArtAICare/Affect-aware-CDR

Bereket A. Yilma, Chan Mi Kim, Geke Ludden et al.

Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) is a multifaceted condition that arises from prolonged stays in an intensive care unit (ICU). While preventing PICS among ICU patients is becoming increasingly important, interventions remain limited. Building on evidence supporting the effectiveness of art exposure in addressing the psychological aspects of PICS, we propose a novel art therapy solution through a collaborative Human-AI approach that enhances personalized therapeutic interventions using state-of-the-art Visual Art Recommendation Systems. We developed two Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) personalization methods and assessed their impact through a large-scale user study (N=150). Our findings demonstrate that this Human-AI collaboration not only enhances the personalization and effectiveness of art therapy but also supports therapists by streamlining their workload. While our study centres on PICS intervention, the results suggest that human-AI collaborative Art therapy could potentially benefit other areas where emotional support is critical, such as cases of anxiety and depression.