An Ecology of MInd by Stephen Johnston Read Free Book Online Page B

anything."
    A scattering of hands went up. "Great, lots to choose from." He pointed to specific volunteers in succession. "You sir in the blue shirt, miss, you with
    the blonde hair, sir, you with the red hair, and you miss in the green dress. If you could please stand up, and Dr. Wales will bring each of you a large
    pad of paper, an eraser and a pencil to draw with."
    Two of the volunteers groaned. "I can't draw," stated the red-haired student.
    "Don't worry about it, all I am asking is that you do your best. It is all part of the experiment."
    From the podium, Dr. Pearson dimmed some of the lights at the front of the room and lowered a large screen behind him. With another switch, he brought up
    the image of a wooden chair with a watermelon sitting on the seat. The watermelon was held up by a small stand. The shadows of both the chair and
    watermelon, were visible on the floor beside the chair.
    "Is that readily visible to all of our volunteer artists or do I need to adjust the light?"
    The volunteers all stated that they could see it well enough.
    "The instructions for this exercise are simple. I want each of the four volunteers to use the pencils provided to do the best drawing of what they see here
    that they can. I am not expecting Rembrandt quality but feel free to surprise me. All I request is that you accurately draw what you see. You have erasers
    so you can make minor corrections as you go if you wish to."
    "Volunteers, you have up to ten minutes to do your drawings. Is everyone ready?" The volunteers replied yes, but some looked more willing than others to
    begin. "Alright, start drawing now. The rest of you try not to talk too loudly or disrupt their efforts."
    Some of the class watched the volunteers work with some making comments of surprise at the talents of some or laughing at those of others. First, one
    volunteer finished drawing then shortly after another one. The third took a little longer to finish, and the last one was working right up until Dr.
    Pearson called time.
    "Thank you all for your efforts." Dr. Wales walked around and collected the drawings. He took them over to the side of the room, and Dr. Pearson looked at
    them and took photographs in a particular order and then loaded the image files into the computer controlling the projector.
    "First let me say that all four of you did a wonderful job. Doing things live can sometimes give you results that you aren't hoping for. This, however, was
    great. I couldn't have gotten better representations of what I was hoping for if I had drawn them myself. Thank you artists, it is always embarrassing if
    an experiment flops when you do it live before an audience."
    He brought up the first image of one of the student drawings. It showed a side view of a chair in stick fashion with an oval shape sitting on the seat. It
    was from a side view showing no depth perception and only two chair legs were visible. "Let's look at this one first. It seems very clear to me that it is
    a chair with a shape representing the watermelon sitting on the seat of the chair. It may not be apparent that the oval shape is a watermelon, but you were
    limited with no color and the shape you have drawn captures the basic shape of the watermelon. I think most people would agree that you visually conveyed
    the concept of a chair with an oval-shaped object sitting on top of the seat. Do you all agree with me on that?"
    The class laughingly agreed that the work did convey the essential concept of a chair with an oval object.
    "Now," continued Dr. Pearson, "the instructions were to draw what you saw in the picture that was projected. The picture does not show the chair in side
    view. It shows an almost three-quarter view. The back of the chair has visible slats, and you show only a single vertical line. There are clearly four
    legs, but you have drawn only two. When given a task to draw what you observed, you provided a conceptualized symbol of the chair and watermelon. You did
    not draw