The Drawing Experiment

Does what you draw, and how you draw it, reveal who you are?  Psychologists believe that the way each of the objects is drawn they say something about the psychology of the person who did the drawing. Your physical and emotional exhibition is a result of the experiences that impress your fragile minds. These experiences form the truer more creative self that conceals itself from the incident world and only charms out when given its space and chance. Drawings tell a lot about the personality and mood of the person. The knowledge of this version of our personality is imperative for us to know our strengths and weaknesses. Hence, we at Dignitas Digital conducted a social experiment that gave each employee a chance to aid their curiosity.

PROCEDURE OF THE EXPERIMENT

The experiment was carried out in two phase: The Space (Phase-1) and The Cube (Phase-2)

The Space

The first round went on for 4 days wherein each employee devoted exactly 10 minutes to the task every day thus, giving everyone 40 minutes to complete their drawings. They were allowed to play the music they liked and were given the liberty to draw anything but in a closed and dim lit activity room.

The Cube

The second phase introduced the concepts of time constraint of 5 minutes, a pressure of specific topics, constant monitoring of the participants and natural lighting in the room. Not only were they limited to a topic but also were subject to a music opposite to their liking when their drawings were in process. These conditions were implemented to observe the impact on the concentration level.

Following factors were tuned to alter the environment of the participants:

1. Time
2. Music
3. Environment/Surrounding
4. Freedom of Choice
5. Lighting

Time constraint Time is the ultimate litmus test for detecting behavioral change. There are people who succumb to pressure but there are others who showcase more effectiveness and efficiency. In our experiment, we saw both cases but the number of people who were creative under the time constraint and pressure was less as compared to their counterparts. Hence, participants performed better with a free mind i.e. The Space (Phase-1)

Music is regarded as a triumph of human creativity and familiarity, apart from being good for focus. Our mind adjusts to a rhythm or a beat and slowly the beat starts to direct and guide our intellectual activity. Needless to say, the incident music was a major behavior altering factor and the results proved to be better than the second case.

Environment plays a very important role. Recall your speed and work efficiency when you sit alone and compare it with a situation when your ‘senior’ is observing you throughout. There were some participants were not bothered being monitored while others felt fairly conscious. The thoughts showed more happiness when the participants weren’t monitored.

Freedom of choice in making what the participants wanted to was not given in the second phase. Every participant was given a topic in the Cube Phase and this clearly isolated their creativity. There were people who spent a minute out of five showing disappointment towards the topic. So, when the participants’ thoughts were isolated, their emotions were affected and this was clearly reflected in the second phase as the drawings in this phase showed dull colors.

Lighting impacts one’s concentration and it is also believed that darkness and dim lighting can encourage freedom of thought and can lead to more prolific ideas (paper in the Journal of Environmental Psychology). Dim lighting downplays a room’s distractions and lets people focus more and work better.

Have a look at our conclusions after careful observation!

• 30 percent participants expressed memories of happy thoughts such as Christmas and positivity through their art work.

• Whereas, almost the same 30% people under time constraint showed a change in behavior. The first sheet of drawing gives happy and vibrant feels as compared to the second one with the time constraint.

• People used happy colors in their first drawings. Colors like yellow, orange, green etc. were used and added to positivity. Color orange shows social communication and optimism and yellow is a very cheerful color. Color green also shows self-reliance, well-being, and positivity.

Phase 1: The Space

Phase 2: The Cube

• Drawing is a subset of expression and graphic designers are people who are most well versed it, hence their outcomes shows a sense of consistency even when the atmosphere was tuned to not suit them.

• Around 25% of people not only revealed but invented themselves under pressure, despite the fact they’re not from the visual creation format these participants managed decent results under both the conditions displaying a balanced stable creative character.

• Almost 25 percent of people’s creative process was gravely threatened when put under constraints. They not only didn’t perform well but also chose alternative ways like copying from others in order to complete in time.

• In the first sheet of art work, people who spent more time on their drawings and worked on optimization clearly performed better. Time management and a thrive for betterment, everywhere is the key to best results.

• Majority people disliked the topics given to them the second time and their performances also dropped. Until the time, participants were given freedom of choice they drew better and positive things.

• It is also observed that there are more “white spaces” in the second drawing of a majority of participants. The difference between merely completing a task and heartily weaving it became profound through the measurement of white space in the drawings.

• A visual expression is essentially the absence of text or dialog, the creators were seen resorting to textual description for support.

• Chinese Fine Art, is an art that can be perceived in different ways by different viewers, unlike Western Art which is singularly objective in nature. Every time someone looks at the drawing it gives a different meaning and we are glad to have such a piece of artwork. The drawing below is from Phase 1: The Space. To us, it seems to be a bulb, a tunnel probably and also a person sitting on a computer. What do you think?

Everyone’s piece of drawing tells what is going on inside their subconscious mind. So the next time you draw something, make sure you take it along because it might just reveal the person inside you.