Memory & Cognition Special Issue

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ISSN: 0090-502X (Print)
1532-5946 (Online)

Published eight times a year.
(Jan, Feb, Apr, May, Jul, Aug, Oct, Nov)

Special Issue

Call for Papers
The Information Exchange Between Working Memory and Long-Term Memory

Coming Soon
Exploration of Human Cognitive Universals and Human Cognitive Diversity

Read the Issue
Rethinking the Distinction between Episodic and Semantic Memory

Read the Issue
Special Issue to Commemorate
the 50th Anniversary of
Atkinson and Shiffrin
Human Memory:
A Proposed
System and Its
Control Processes

Drawing as a Means To Quantify
Memory and Cognition

Guest Editors
Wilma A. Bainbridge (University of Chicago, USA)
Rebecca Chamberlain (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
Jeffrey Wammes (Queen's University, Canada)
Judith E. Fan (University of California San Diego, USA)

Until recently, a majority of behavioral studies on memory (and cognition more broadly) relied upon relatively low-resolution measures - reaction times, choice behavior, or confidence ratings. For example, memories are often evaluated on whether they are there or not (e.g., old/new recognition), how confident the observer is, or how vivid the memory is. However, our memories themselves are more complex than a single number - a memory for an episode contains rich visual information, semantic interpretations, movement, affect, spatial information, errors, omissions, and more. In order to assess the rich content of memory, it is important that we develop rich, high-resolution tools.

Drawing as a method presents an exciting opportunity to reveal these richer representations within memory. Rather than selecting a single image or translating a memory into a verbal description, participants can draw the image in their mind, as well as depict other semantic, affective, and social aspects of the memory. In spite of this power, drawing has been largely underutilized as a method in the field until recently. Fortunately, the last five years have seen an explosion in drawing methods for studying memory, learning, perception and other cognitive processes, although this is still the tip of the iceberg. This growth in drawing as a tool is largely owed to increases in new ways to turn these "subjective" images into objective data - such as carefully designed tasks, crowd-sourcing and deep-learning-based methods to quantify individual drawings, and tablet devices for recording the precise trajectories of drawing. The general movement in the field of more naturalistic stimuli and tasks is now being joined by a movement towards more naturalistic output behaviors, such as drawing.

In addition, drawing has also gained traction as the basis of many important theoretical questions around memory and cognition. For example, what are the similarities and differences between visual free recall and visual recognition? What do drawings reveal about our representations, abstractions, and biases of different visual categories? How do we integrate processes of visual perception, memory, and motor planning to create a drawing? And, how does experience with drawing impact our abilities of visual perception and memory? These questions and many others highlight the ways in which drawing as a cognitive process serves as a useful lens towards understanding other cognitive processes like vision and memory.

As a result, there is a clear growing interest in the field in studying drawing as a cognitive tool and cognitive process, making this Special Issue in Memory & Cognition particularly timely. Our goal with this Special Issue is to capture the diverse and innovative ways in which researchers are adopting drawing to answer new questions. Beyond memory, drawing also has potential to address questions in other cognitive fields such as perception, social interaction, emotional processing, learning, decision making, and others. Drawing also has potential links with other methods of production like handwriting, verbal production, and music. We are excited to see the many ways in which drawing can be creatively applied across the field of cognitive science.

Submission Guidelines
The guest editors of this Special Issue at Memory & Cognition invite contributions that present behavioral findings, meta-analysis, computational models, or neuroscientific results that either utilize drawing as a method to understand cognitive processes, or study how the process of drawing itself relates to other forms of cognition. We are also interested in submissions utilizing drawings to look at questions across the lifespan or apply analyses of drawings in innovative ways to appraise traits in individuals. We would also welcome papers testing other related production methods (e.g. handwriting) that make a clear link to drawing in the work. The goal of this Special Issue will be to present a landscape of the innovative and diverse ways in which drawing is both methodologically and theoretically interesting for the study of memory and cognition more broadly.

Full submission guidelines are here.

Submission Deadline
The submission deadline was extended to January 31, 2023. (12.19.2022)

Questions? Email the Guest Editors:

Wilma A. Bainbridge (University of Chicago, USA)
Rebecca Chamberlain (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
Jeffrey Wammes (Queen's University, Canada)
Judith E. Fan (University of California San Diego, USA)