Why Do People Draw Symbols Instead of What They See?
Most people feel reasonably confident that they could draw a face from memory. Try a simple experiment. Take a sheet of paper and draw a head. Place the eyes where they belong, then add the nose and mouth. When psychologists examine these drawings, a consistent pattern appears. Anatomically, the eyes sit roughly halfway between the top of the head and the chin. In drawings produced from memory, the eyes are usually placed noticeably higher than this midpoint. The same pattern appears in children and adults across many cultures.
