Master’s Thesis Presentation • Human-Computer Interaction • DeepThInk: Designing and Probing Human-AI Co-creation in Digital Art Therapy

Please note: This master’s thesis presentation will take place in DC 3317 and virtually over Zoom.

Xuejun Du, Master’s candidate
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Supervisor: Professor Jian Zhao

Art therapy has been an essential form of psychotherapy to facilitate psychological well-being, which has been promoted and transformed by recent technological advances into digital art therapy. However, the potential of digital technologies has not been fully leveraged; especially, applying AI technologies in digital art therapy is still under-explored.

In this paper, we propose DeepThInk, an AI-infused art-making system collaborated with five experienced registered art therapists over ten months, to investigate the potential of introducing a human-AI co-creative process into art therapy. DeepThInk offers a range of tools which can lower the expertise threshold for art-making while improving users’ creativity and expressivity. We validated DeepThInk through expert reviews and a two-part user evaluation with both synchronous and asynchronous therapy setups. This longitudinal iterative design process helped us derive and contextualize design principles of human-AI co-creation for art therapy, shedding light on future design in relevant domains.

To attend this seminar in person, please go to DC 3317. You can also attend virtually using Zoom at https://uwaterloo.zoom.us/j/94309913948.