We explore the encoding-by-caricature hypothesis for basic shapes, by asking participants to reproduce shapes from visual memory.
In most of our experiments, participants' task was to reproduce the a shape they had just seen, by adjusting a test shape. Surprisingly, participants tended to reproduce a caricatured version of the shape they saw.
Here is a demonstration of Experiment 1:
Links to the six experiments:
Experiment 1 - re-creating novel shapes by moving a slider
Experiment 2 - expanding the range of information density
Experiment 3 - replicating results with 2AFC task
Experiment 4 - re-creating shapes by memory and by perception
Experiment 5 - intution about memories
Experiment 6 - serial reproduction
Data, stimuli, and other materials are available at https://osf.io/7grk8/.