Eye–hand strategies in copying complex lines

Abstract

Eye movements and eye–hand interactions have been recorded for 10 beginner art students copying complex lines representing outlines of caricature heads seen in profile. Four copying conditions mimicking real-world drawing situations were tested: Direct copying where the original and copy were placed side by side, Direct Blind copying where the subject could not see the drawing hand and copy, Memory copying where the original was first memorized for drawing and subsequently hidden before drawing commenced, and Non-specific Memory copying where the original was encoded for facial recognition before being hidden and drawn from memory. We observed four very different eye–hand interaction strategies which provide evidence for the eye's dual role in the copying process: acquiring visual information in order to activate the visuomotor transformation and guiding the hand on the paper. The Direct copying strategies were best understood in terms of a Drawing Hypothesis stating that shape is the result of visuomotor mapping alone and, consequently, can be accurately drawn without vision of the drawing hand or paper. A double just-in-time mechanism is proposed whereby the eye refers alternatively to the original for shape and to the copy for spatial position just in time for the drawing action to proceed continuously.

Drawing and writing: An ALE meta-analysis of sensorimotor activations

“…Hence, both involve instrumental motor gestures that engage effectors in the hand, wrist, and arm. Additionally, both are visually-guided motor activities in which hand-eye coordination and visual feedback are essential for accuracy in performance (Tchalenko & Miall, 2009). There are also visual similarities between the products of drawing and writing, and elements from one are often integrated into the other.…”

Effects of task complexity and sensory conflict on goal-directed movement

“…Of note is that different types of drawing activities exist, integrating distinct task constraints and neural regulation [e.g., 23,32]. In the current experiment, the drawing tasks required copying of templates, which implied that the visual model and movement trajectory were in different locations.…”

Gaze–mouse coordinated movements and dependency with coordination demands in tracing

“…Eye-hand coordination has been studied in various human behavioural tasks, including object reaching and pointing (Biguer et al 1982;Neggers and Bekkering 2000;Ariff et al 2002;Crawford et al 2004;Masia et al 2009), web browsing (Chen et al 2001;Rodden et al 2008;Guo and Agichtein 2010), goal-directed aiming (Binsted et al 2001;Behan and Wilson 2008), visually guided tracking (Gauthier et al 1988;Vercher and Gauthier 1992;Xia and Barnes 1999;Tramper and Gielen 2011), drawing (Reina and Schwartz 2003;Gowen and Miall 2006;Coen-Cagli et al 2009;Tchalenko and Chris Miall 2009), and trajectory tracing (Gowen and Miall 2006;Tramper and Gielen 2011). Other more complex tasks or applications that combine sequential movements have also attracted growing research interests, such as object manipulation (Johansson et al 2001;Bowman et al 2009) and virtual laparoscopic surgery (Yamaguchi et al 2007).…”

“…Previous research has focused on gaze-hand coordination (Biguer et al 1982;Neggers and Bekkering 2000;Binsted et al 2001;Johansson et al 2001;Ariff et al 2002;Reina and Schwartz 2003;Crawford et al 2004;Gowen and Miall 2006;Coen-Cagli et al 2009;Masia et al 2009;Tchalenko and Chris Miall 2009;Tramper and Gielen 2011), studying user behaviour patterns where human computer interaction was not their primary concern. When a medium, such as pointing devices or haptic interfaces, is involved in human-computer interaction rather than direct use of physical hands, the users may behave differently from their natural habits in the interaction tasks.…”