I was watching a show that talked about Henry Gustav Molaison having part of his brain removed for epilepsy, led scientist to discover implicit memory. This quote found about halfway down the page of this site barely explains Explicit and implicit memories. (Also this mirror tracing activity )
So Implicit memories, also called Procedural memory is the unconscious memory of skills and how to do things, particularly the use of objects or movements of the body, such as playing a guitar or riding a bike.Explicit and implicit memories
Brenda Milner did a famous experiment in which H.M. learned to trace a five-pointed star reflected in a mirror. So this man who couldn't form long-term memories seemed to learn something. What were the implications?
That was a groundbreaking finding, really, because it showed that memory—what we call declarative or explicit memory, where you're consciously remembering something—was supported by this little area in the middle part of the temporal lobes that Scoville removed. But because Henry could do mirror tracing and a lot of other motor-skill learning tasks, the message was, there are other brain areas that are doing this work.
This fostered a huge amount of research to discover what areas support motor-skill learning and other kinds of learning without awareness. It turns out that very different parts of the brain support different kinds of learning.
Then, looking at Greg Manchess' post about tracing he said he really had to focus and it helped his memorization skills. It seems almost the same type of memory as H.M. was learning?
I was thinking this same approach could be done to drawing. Is there ever any exercises where your tracing some sort of stock character, such as this Loomis drawing over and over with this idea in mind? I see sketchbooks on here where the student is copying the same Loomis drawing a "few" times, but never the same drawing 50 or 100 times. Wouldn't it make sense that slow focused tracing of the same drawings would prove BIG results? Has there ever been any theories about this, experiments or individuals that have tried this? Any information relevant to this?




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