speiltegning

Speiltegning is a drawing task used in psychology and education in which a person draws an object or traces a figure while viewing the drawing through a mirror, so the image is reversed left to right. The setup typically involves a drawing surface, a mirror, and a pen or pencil. The participant is asked to copy a target figure or trace lines on paper while watching the reflection in the mirror. Because the mirror inverts the visual feedback, the task requires adaptation of visuomotor mappings; initial performance is often erratic and misaligned, but accuracy and speed generally improve with practice.

Measures include time to complete, number of tracing errors or line deviations, deviation of the drawn shape from the target, and smoothness of movement. Mirror drawing is used to study motor learning, adaptation to altered sensory feedback, and the neural basis of sensorimotor integration. It has been employed in neuropsychology to assess cerebellar and parietal function and in rehabilitation research for patients with motor impairments after stroke or brain injury. In educational contexts, it can illustrate perceptions of space, symmetry, and hand-eye coordination.

Variations exist: some tasks require tracing only, others freehand copying under mirrored feedback; some use more complex shapes or rotating perspectives. The performance typically improves with brief training as internal models update to accommodate the inverted feedback.