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Proportion Perceptions

7 years ago635 words

I want to do a little informal experiment, and would appreciate volunteers!

I have a university assignment that was due in yesterday... and which I've barely started. I've got an extension, which is what you do when you've missed the deadline but don't want to be downgraded for it, but, well, it's still stressful knowing I've fallen behind with it. Depression and all that are to blame, of course.

The module that the assignment is for is called Neuroaesthetics, which is essentially the study of art and aesthetic perceptions from a neurological or psychological perspective. It's interesting to me, because - like with the evolution stuff - it ties into things I've already written about before and think about a lot.

The assignment is a research proposal; I have to come up with an idea for a study which extends previous research to explore something new.

I've chosen to focus on how we perceive figure proportions... but rather than explaining all the whats and whys behind my decisions, I'd like to instead ask here if anyone's willing to do what the experiment would involve. I'd be really interested to see the results! Obviously nothing acquired online would be valid for all kinds of reasons (the environment isn't controlled at all), but I'd be interested to see just for the sake of curiosity.

What I'd like for you to do, if you're interested and willing, is this:

Draw a whole person, standing facing forward and with their arms by their sides, as realistically as you can make it (so no stick people).

That's it. Most people would respond to that with "but I can't draw!", but if you feel you can't, then I'm especially interested in what you'd come up with! I would absolutely not expect 'good' drawings at all; that's not the point. The point is to see what people come up with when they don't 'know how to draw'. What rules their mind has formed for what the figure looks like without any explicit learned drawing rules. I'm really interested to see how similar or different they look. I'm also interested to see how people would interpret the simple guideline; many details are deliberately unspecified to encourage subjective responses.

There have been studies like this before, but usually for observing the development of children (whose figure drawings change drastically over the first few years of their life), or people with brain damage. But as far as I can tell, there isn't anything comparing figure depictions by neurologically healthy adults.

So yes. If you're interested in contributing to this, I'd love to see your attempt! I won't be judging them at all, and I'll post a compilation of them all (if I get any) in another post in a few days, keeping them anonymous, so we can all see how they compare. If you do draw something, please either post the image in a comment here, or email it to me at tobias@alorafane.com. Thank you in advance!

(Again, the aim isn't to impress. I'm not looking for works of art. You needn't worry about it not being 'good'. I'm more interested in seeing your brain's idea of what a person looks like given form; in seeing the drawings of people who 'can't draw'.)

Oh, and don't use any kind of reference!!

Actually, maybe you should also specify how much 'art experience' you have; that is, do you draw for fun? Often? Ever? Have you learned how to draw anatomy, or are you aware of proportional rules etc? Or is drawing something you just never think about? (If this were an actual experiment, there'd be a neatly-written, validated questionnaire to assess such things, but I don't really have the time to come up with one right now, so vague responses to that are fine!)