From scribbling to painting: children’s drawing as an evolutionary laboratory for multisensory and sensorimotor integration

Adult painting emerges from a sophisticated multisensory integration between vision, touch, proprioception, and motor control, taking shape as a form of active Bayesian inference about the external environment. The evolutionary origins (and survival value) of such embodied coordination, however, remain poorly explored. Traditional literature views children’s drawing as a passive output of perceptual-motor-cognitive development. This work proposes the opposite hypothesis: that drawing acts as an active form of natural training, serving as an evolutionary laboratory for sensorimotor calibration. Through a parallel analysis between graphic stages and neuroscientific milestones, we propose that each stroke provides persistent and informative feedback. The kinematic parameters of the gesture (velocity, curvature, pressure) are linked to stable visuo-tactile outcomes on the page, surpassing the effectiveness of other traceless motor experiences. Bayesian modeling suggests that drawing may involve iterative active experiments in which predictions about gestural outcomes are generated, compared with observed feedback, and used to update generative models that align internal and external sensory maps. This ecological process could help to learn eye-hand coordination and to update the formation of spatial-bodily representations in a period of life characterized by a fast physical growth of the body parts and maturation of the motor plant. By redefining drawing as developmental training in perceptual and creative growth, the hypothesis opens new perspectives on early multisensory plasticity.