The Diagnostics of Aesthetic Endowments: Approbation of the Test VAST in Russia

Abstract

The article presents the results of adaptation of one of the latest versions of the Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test (VAST) on two Russian samples: school children aged 10-12 years (132 participants) and adults (107 participants).1. There was no positive impact of age-related changes on the VAST results; however, the characteristics of the procedure used for the adult sample do not allow stating its complete absence.2. In contrast to the data obtained by other authors (mostly when using an earlier version of VAST), our results do not support the asymmetry of the VAST scores.3. VAST has satisfactory reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha is 0.86; correlation coefficient between odd and even items is 0.76.4. Our results do not support the validity of VAST: average scores of professional artists did not exceed those of non-artists tested in similar conditions.5. The assessment of school children showed that there was a weak positive relationship between aesthetic giftedness (to the extent that the results of VAST could be considered its valid indicator) and intelligence (as measured by Standard Progressive Matrices Plus (SPM Plus)).  A comparison of the results obtained in our study with the results obtained by other authors demonstrated stability of the psychometric properties of VAST across various studies.