Why can't most people draw what they see?

Abstract

The study presented a theoretical and empirical approach to the adult drawing process. Four possible sources of drawing inaccuracies were described: misperception of the object, inability to make good representational decisions, deficient motor skills, and misperception of the drawing. In four studies the degree to which the latter three sources contributed to drawing inaccuracies was assessed. The results suggest that (a) motor coordination is a very minimal source of drawing inaccuracies, (b) the artist's decision-making process is a relatively minor source of drawing inaccuracies, and (c) the artist's misperception of his or her work is not a source of drawing inaccuracies. These results suggest that the artist's misperception of the object is the major source of drawing errors.

How shape constancy relates to drawing accuracy.

“…The computer presented the appropriate photograph for 10 min. The 10-min allotment was sufficient since most artists indicated completion at that time (see Cohen & Bennett, 1997). At the end of the 10-min time period, the experimenter removed the participant's drawing and placed a new white sheet of paper in front of the participant.…”

“…The photographs were counterbalanced between participants. The instructions read to the artist were identical to those used by Cohen and Bennett (1997). In short, the artist was asked to draw the photograph as visually accurate as possible.…”

“…In an effort to identify the major cause of drawing errors, Cohen and Bennett (1997) decomposed the drawing process into four stages: accurately perceiving the to-be-drawn stimulus; deciding how and where to make marks to accurately represent the to-bedrawn stimulus; having the motor ability to make the mark; and evaluating the accuracy of one's drawing in an effort to identify and correct mistakes. Cohen and Bennett tested and ruled out the three latter stages (i.e., decision making, motor ability, and selfevaluation) as major causes of drawing errors.…”

Another Reason Why Adults Find it Hard to Draw Accurately

“…Cohen & Bennett (1997) established that the primary source of errors in adults' observational drawings is misperception of the object. A major contributor to this misperception is participants' knowledge about the properties of the object they are drawing.…”

Visual Thinking: Art Students Have an Advantage in Geometric Reasoning

“…Visual artists excel in mental rotation and visual memory (Casey, et al, 1990;Hermelin & O'Connor, 1986;Rosenblatt & Winner, 1988), visual attention and visual analysis of objects (Kozbelt & Seeley, 2007), and form recognition (Kozbelt, 1991;Cohen & Bennett, 1997;Mitchell, et al, 2005). In a functional MRI study, Solso (2001) examined the neural activity of artists and non-artists while they drew faces inside the scanner.…”