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This paper proposes to represent symbolic polyphonic musical data as contingency tables based upon the duration of each pitch for each time interval. Exploratory data analytic methods involve weighted multidimensional scaling, correspondence analysis, hierarchical clustering, and general autocorrelation indices constructed from weighted temporal neighborhoods. Beyond the analysis of single polyphonic musical scores, the methods sustain inter-voices as well as inter-scores comparisons, through the introduction of ad hoc measures of configuration similarity and cross-autocorrelation. Rich musical patterns emerge in the related applications, and preliminary results are encouraging for clustering tasks.

This introduction presents the project Children’s Drawings of Gods, relating its history from its origins through the present day. Following this recounting, we explain the organisation of this volume, introduce its parts and subparts, and briefly describe the content of each chapter.

Empirical demonstrations of the embodied and grounded cognition approach, involving diverse areas and phenomena, have increased exponentially in recent years. However, little research has been done in the religious domain. To the best of our knowledge, no study based on this theoretical framework has explored spatial dimension in pictorial representation of the divine in children’s drawings or in religious art in general. The present study represents the very first attempt to investigate if and how spatiality is involved in the way children depict the divine in their drawings. Drawings collected from four groups of participants (n = 1156, ages 6–15) characterized by different cultural and religious environments: Japanese (Buddhism and Shinto), Russian-Buryat (Buddhism, Shamanism), Russian Slavic (Christian Orthodoxy), and French-speaking Swiss (Catholic and reformed Christianity) were annotated using the Gauntlet annotation tool and then analysed. The main result indicates that children from all four groups generally depict god (the centre of the annotated representation) in the upper part of their drawings. Further testing indicates that the type of composition (for instance, god depicted alone or as standing on the ground where the sky is also depicted) did not serve as a major influence on the child’s placement of god.

Colour is still a relatively neglected aspect in the study both of religious art and of children’s artistic expression of the divine. Our research addresses this important gap and adds to psychological research on religious representations and conceptualization of the divine. From drawings collected in four different cultural and religious environments: Japanese (Buddhism and Shinto), Russian-Buryat (Buddhism, Shamanism), Russian-Slavic (Christian Orthodoxy) and French-speaking Swiss (Catholic and reformed Christianity) we show that children often imagine and depict god using the same colours: primarily yellow and blue. Apparently, god is often imagined by children as light or in light (yellow) and dwelling in the sky (blue). These results parallel historical and religious studies showing that the light enjoys prominent and most powerful symbolism and association with the divine. Complementary analysis of possible effect of child’s age, gender, and schooling (religious or regular) did not affect the main result. This research also introduced a novel approach to data analysis by using computer vision in psychological studies of children’s drawings. The automated colour identification method was developed to extract colours from scans of drawings. Despite some difficulties, this new methodology opens an interesting avenue for future research in children’s drawings and visual art.