How good is your visual recognition memory?

Sydney Back Garden

25.5" x 19.5", pastel
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I was reading a blog post the other day by Robyn (Have Dogs Will Travel). She's just been to Venice and has been sketching. Her experience reminded me very much of how difficult it can be to draw in Venice - and not just because of all the visitors.

I commented about how, on the first time I visited Venice, I found the whole place to be a total visual overload. It was really difficult place to start creating artwork as there was just so much visual information to absorb. At the same time it's a place that I now also have a fantastic visual memory of.

My comment made me think about our visual capacities and in particular visual perception, visual recognition and visual memory and I've been pondering it ever since - hence this post. Here are some of the questions I've been pondering.

• How good is your visual capacity and your visual memory?
• How good is your brain at perceiving information and recording visual memories?
• How much do you rely on visual memory records when developing a sketch, drawing or painting of a place, object or event?

This is probably going to be my version of 'talking out loud' as I'm sure I'm going to continue to think about this. So at the moment I'm getting some words down via the keyboard as I find that helps me sort out both information and thoughts. This may ramble a bit.........

I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this topic so, if you like, please join in via the comments.

Visual capacity - and drawing and sketching from life

Our capacity to absorb and remember visual information seems to be a product of how well our visual system works (eyesight, how it connects to the brain and how well the brain processes data!), any 'natural' ability we may have to process visual information and sheer practice.

For example, I find as I'm getting older my eyesight is getting worse but this is more than offset by that fact that I've been getting progressively better at processing visual information. I can now filter out 'stuff' (the visual equivalent of 'noise') which might absorb other people. So for example I'm now much better than I was when I was young at seeing 'big shapes' and values (irrespective of colours) and nuances in colours.

I know that because I draw from life a lot that I notice visual information all the time. Once I started sketching in public I started to learn how to 'process' the visual information I found in scenes as 'pictures' and consequently started seeing scenes to sketch all over the place! Instantaneously. It was quite uncanny and was really very distracting while driving the car until I got used to it. Now I see them all the time and only have to deal with mental processing of the 'to do' list in terms of ones to go back to and draw!

In my experience, I've found that most people who draw from photographs all the time just don't seem to develop this ability in the same way - simply because they don't practice it enough. Back to ability and practice again.

I also find that I remember the places I've sketched very much better than places that I haven't. It's something to do with recording visual shapes, tones and details. Plus of course I tend to observe more acutely when trying to draw such places. I'm then very happy to leave scenes as sketches for some time - years even - because I 'know' that the visual memory will be acute when I call it back up using the sketch as the tool.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur
coloured pencil in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

One of the things that I also like to do with the scenes I sketch is wait to see which memories last longest. With some sketches I know straight away that the visual memory is going to be very strong. They generally seem to be those which made the most impact at the time.

What's also interesting is to see which ones are still 'strong' a year later. I rather enjoy waiting to see what comes out sometimes it's quite different to what I expecting. I'm only now beginning to distill down the scenes I saw on my two trips to the USA last year

Massacre Pond, Prouts Neck
coloured pencil in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Visual memory and overload

Visual perception is not just simply a question of what we see - it's also to do with how our brains process visual information

Visual memory is a part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. We are able to place in memory information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in a sort of a mental image. Some authors refer to this experience as an “our mind's eye” through which we can retrieve from our memory a mental image of the original object, place, animal or person.
Wikipedia - visual memory

The problem I had with Venice on my first visit is that it doesn't look like anywhere else I knew. There was just too much new visual information. By the time of my first visit to Venice I had developed my ability to absorb visual information through practice - and consequently I felt absolutely swamped by new shapes, new light, new colour, new tonal relationships. It was too much.

The Steps by The Rialto (a WIP)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The next time I visited, I'd looked at photographs of my previous visit, read more books about Venice and generally just knew more about what it looked like. On the second visit, it became much easier to sort out the visual information I received and consequently became much easier to draw as a result.

I'd also gone with a list of places already worked of places I wanted to go and scenes I wanted to do - altogether much more planned and purposeful.

The same thing has happened in other places which have very distinctive visual characters and look quite different to anywhere else I'd been previously. So, for example, colours in the tropics (during visits to Goa and Bali) took a lot of getting used to, whereas some of the architecture in Goa was familiar (because of its Portuguese influence).

I found on my first visit to New South Wales that parts of it reminded me of parts of Europe. However it was very odd on my first visit to California to find that I kept being reminded of Australia. I later learned that the eucalyptus trees in California are not indigeneous and had been imported. I wonder how many Californians might think that the pastel painting at the top of this blog post was of California - if I didn't tell them that it was actually my sister's back garden in the suburbs of Sydney!

Visual recognition

Interestingly, it appears that this phenomena might be linked in some way to something called the recognition system which helps with the neural basis of spatial memory. Apparently, the visual recognition memory avoids the brain going into overload - and explains why new places can seem so overwhelming. The links here and at the bottom and this quote are for the techie types only - we know who we are! ;)

The visual recognition memory system that resides in a region of the brain known as the perirhinal cortex. Certain neurons in this area respond in such a way as to discriminate between objects that have not been seen before (novelty neurons), those that have been seen before (familiarity neurons) and those that have been seen recently (recency neurons). In each case, the response of the neuron is decreased following stimulation. Thus, a novelty neuron responds strongly when presented with a novel object, but less strongly when that object is presented for a second or third time.
MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity - Brain Basics - Learning and memory

In addition there is something called eidetic memory - which is a very particular form of memory.

Eidetic memory, photographic memory, or total recall, is the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme accuracy and in seemingly abundant volume. The word eidetic (pronounced: /aɪˈdɛtɪk/) comes from the Greek word είδος (eidos), which means "image" or "form". Eidetic memory can have a very different meaning for memory experts who use the Picture Elicitation Method to detect it. Eidetic memory as observed in children is typified by the ability of an individual to study an image for approximately 30 seconds, and maintain a nearly perfect photographic memory of that image for a short time once it has been removed--indeed such eidetikers claim to "see" the image on the blank canvas as vividly and in as perfect detail as if it were still there.

While many people demonstrate extraordinary memory abilities, it is unlikely that true eidetic memory exists in adults (if at all^[1][2][3][4]). While many famous artists and composers (Claude Monet^[5] and Mozart) are commonly thought to have had eidetic memory, it is possible that their memories simply became highly trained in their respective fields of art, as they each devoted large portions of their waking hours towards the improvement of their abilities.
Wikipedia - Eidetic memory

Things you can do to improve your visual memory

I've got some techniques plus have done a little bit of research and what follows is a summary of some suggestions for ways to improve your visual memory

• talk about what you can see - using words helps organise your memory
• record what you can see - sketches leave a longer lasting impression that photographs
  
• make notes about what you see (eg I often record words for the colours I can see in terms of other objects)
• study a scene for a minute then look away and draw it without looking back
• draw something you saw yesterday which made an impact on you

The one thing I do know is that practice helps develop capability.

The bit I'm still pondering at the moment is whether we process information from a scene in the same way that we tend to process visual information of a page. Or do we assume that a scene is not organised and therefore we don't have any pre-conceived patterns of eye movement - unlike organisation of information on paper and the recognised tendency for eyes to move in particular patterns - which, in turn, is used by people who design web pages for a living!

OK - over to you - do you have any thoughts on this topic?

Links:

• Travels with a Sketchbook Blog
• Travels with a Sketchbook - website
  
• University of Bristol: Brain Basics - some of the fundamentals of neuroscience
  
• Wikipedia
• visual perception
  
• visual memory
• eidetic memory