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Comment by dorkwood | Hacker News Reader

Many people, in my experience, exaggerate the ability of the mind’s eye. Ask them to picture Bugs Bunny and they’ll say they can see him perfectly, give them a pencil and ask them to draw the shape of his mouth and they’ll flounder, because they were never really seeing that sort of detail. What they were “seeing” was more like the memory of a symbol.

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I think people's ability to imagine scenes, and then render them, are two very, very, very different skill sets. In fact, have somebody render the scene right before your very eyes, or even try to render bugs bunny from the image they see right in front of them.

I can imagine enormous paintings from the Prado in my head, but could I render them? No, and I have decent artistic ability (not great, but I could probably do a decent bugs bunny).

I’m not asking them to copy it exactly. I just want them to put everything where it should be.

A better example is probably a bicycle. Everyone knows what a bicycle looks like. Ask someone with a great “mind’s eye” to draw one with all the parts in the right place. I haven’t tested it, but my guess is that they’d struggle.

You're in for a treat! Here's a curated collection of bicycle drawings, complete with full renderings of some of the most interesting designs.

http://www.gianlucagimini.it/prototypes/velocipedia.html

What I find interesting about those (I've seen something very similar before, maybe even that set) is that people don't bother to be informed by the obvious inability of the device they drew to function.

I think there are two separate skills: the ability to remember the visual symbols and the ability to draw them. Even if you can remember the symbols in great detail, you still might not be able to draw them if you haven't acquired drawing skills. However, anyone with deep visual recollection should be able to notice when something has changed. For example, they should be able to notice if Bugs Bunny's tail changes from upward-pointing to backward-pointing without looking again at the original.

I hadn't considered that possibility so this is helpful; thank you. I might run a few experiments around the office later!

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