A Sketching Game for Art History Instruction

Abstract

Study of images, in contexts as widespread as medicine, geography, and art history, demands attention to detail and exercise of memory. Presented with traditional textbooks, students have difficulty concentrating for the long periods of time needed to absorb the information. This paper presents a sketch-based game for learning images. We tested the game in the domain of art history, and in a controlled user study, we found that it dramatically increased the time that participants chose to spend learning about historical paintings. The increase in study time was accompanied by a proportionate increase in information retention and familiarity with the images.