Both Sides Now: Visualizing and Drawing with the Right and Left Hemispheres of the Brain

Abstract

Neuroscience research provides new models for understanding vision that challenge Betty Edwards’ (1979, 1989, 1999) assumptions about right brain vision and common conventions of “realistic” drawing. Enlisting PET and fMRI technology, neuroscience documents how the brains of normal adults respond to images of recognizable objects and scenes. Vision combines neural paths on both sides of the brain to provide rapid, strategic information rather than information about the surface of objects in a static scene. The ventral What path in the brain quickly identifies objects either from different points of view or by individual features. Within this path, specific brain areas strongly respond to object categories, such as faces. The dorsal Where path fits a viewer-centered approach to assessing the relative distance of moving objects with the aid of saccadic eye movements every few seconds to maintain alertness. “Realistic” drawing conventions in Western art differ significantly from the complex, bilateral process of vision.