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Studies on drawing often focused on spatial aspects of the finished products. Here, the drawing behavior was studied by analyzing its intermittent process, between drawing (i.e. marking a surface) and interruption (i.e. a pause in the marking gesture). To assess how this intermittence develops with age, we collected finger-drawings on a touchscreen by 185 individuals (children and adults). We measured the temporal structure of each drawing sequence to determine its complexity. To do this, we applied temporal fractal estimators to each drawing time series before combining them in a Principal Component Analysis procedure. The youngest children (3-year-old) drew in a more stereotypical way with long-range dependence detected in their alternations between states. Among older children and adults, the complexity of drawing sequences increased showing a less predictable behavior as their drawings become more detailed and figurative. This study improves our understanding of the temporal aspects of drawing behavior, and contributes to an objective understanding of its ontogeny.

Figurative drawing is a skill that takes time to learn, and it evolves during different childhood phases that begin with scribbling and end with representational drawing. Between these phases, it is difficult to assess when and how children demonstrate intentions and representativeness in their drawings. The marks produced are increasingly goal-oriented and efficient as the child's skills progress from scribbles to figurative drawings. Pre-figurative activities provide an opportunity to focus on drawing processes. We applied fourteen metrics to two different datasets (N = 65 and N = 344) to better understand the intentional and representational processes behind drawing, and combined these metrics using principal component analysis (PCA) in different biologically significant dimensions. Three dimensions were identified: efficiency based on spatial metrics, diversity with color metrics, and temporal sequentiality. The metrics at play in each dimension are similar for both datasets, and PCA explains 77% of the variance in both datasets. Gender had no effect, but age influenced all three dimensions differently. These analyses for instance differentiate scribbles by children from those drawn by adults. The three dimensions highlighted by this study provide a better understanding of the emergence of intentions and representativeness in drawings. We discussed the perspectives of such findings in comparative psychology and evolutionary anthropology.

Figurative drawing is a skill that takes time to learn, and evolves during different childhood phases that begin with scribbling and end with representational drawing. Between these phases, it is difficult to assess when and how children demonstrate intentions and representativeness in their drawings. The marks produced are increasingly goal-oriented and efficient as the child’s skills progress from scribbles to figurative drawings. Pre-figurative activities provide an opportunity to focus on drawing processes. We applied fourteen metrics to two different datasets (N = 65 and N = 345) to better understand the intentional and representational processes behind drawing, and combined these metrics using principal component analysis (PCA) in different biologically significant dimensions. Three dimensions were identified: efficiency based on spatial metrics, diversity with colour metrics, and temporal sequentiality. The metrics at play in each dimension are similar for both datasets, and PCA explains 77% of the variance in both datasets. These analyses differentiate scribbles by children from those drawn by adults. The three dimensions highlighted by this study provide a better understanding of the emergence of intentions and representativeness in drawings. We have already discussed the perspectives of such findings in Comparative Psychology and Evolutionary Anthropology.

We need specific and objective methods to analyse the temporal changes of drawing in children, especially those too young to communicate via verbalisations. We asked 134 children, ranging from three to ten years old, and 38 adults to draw on a tablet under two conditions: free drawing and self-portrait. We then used seven metrics from three categories (spatial, temporal, and colorimetric) in a principal component analysis (PCA). Three dimensions of the PCA explained 77% of the variance in the drawings. We named these dimensions as diversity, sequentiality, and efficiency, which provided a mechanism for better understanding the intentionality and representativeness behind drawing. Gender had no effect, but age influenced all three dimensions differently. This multi-metric approach is a powerful tool for investigating the ontogenetic development of drawing, and could be used to understand the evolution of this behaviour by applying it to the study of primates, or to reveal drawing characteristics in people with autism and depression or those from different cultures.

Studies on drawing often focused on spatial aspects of the finished products. Here, the drawing behaviour was studied by analysing its intermittent process, between drawing (i.e. marking a surface) and interruption (i.e. a pause in the marking gesture). To assess how this intermittence develops with age, we collected finger-drawings on a touchscreen by 185 individuals (children and adults). We measured the temporal structure of each drawing sequence to determine its complexity. To do this, we applied temporal fractal estimators to each drawing time series before combining them in a Principal Component Analysis procedure. The youngest children (3 years-old) drew in a more stereotypical way with long-range dependence detected in their alternations between states. Among older children and adults, the complexity of drawing sequences increased showing a less predictable behaviour as their drawings become more detailed and figurative. This study improves our understanding of the temporal aspects of drawing behaviour, and contributes to an objective understanding of its ontogeny.