Cognitive neuroscience of drawing: Contributions of neuropsychological, experimental and neurofunctional studies.

From at least 30,000 years ago, humans pictured animals, such as rhinoceroses, horses, and lions, on the walls of the caves in which they lived. In spite of controversies over the level of cognitive evolution underlying such cave paintings (see Humphrey, 1998), drawing is a distinguishing skill of human beings. It is one sign of the striking evolution of the human brain to its sophisticated symbolic and communicative abilities, and despite the ever-changing conventions of artistic representation, artists and painters may provide deep insights into principles governing brain processes, such as visual processing (Cavanagh, 2005). Yet, drawing has received little attention in the neurosciences, possibly because so many processes are involved. To rekindle interest in investigating the cognitive and neuroscientific aspects of drawing, we proposed to Cortex to set up a special issue covering the different theoretical and methodological perspectives, hence this issue on Cognitive Neurosciences of Drawing.