Effects of Spatial and Motoric Demands in Handwriting

摘要

The present experiments were conducted to study response programming in handwriting tasks. Twelve right-handed subjects wrote acoustically presented words and short sentences which were digitally recorded. Changes in latency, movement time, trajectory distance and pen pressure were studied as a function of response complexity (i.e., word length, spacing distance, and initial letter). A lengthening of the spatiotemporal parameters preceding the more complex structures reflects effects of mental load. The results also indicate that the choice of a programming strategy can be dependent on the complexity structure of the task. Writing pressure decreased as a function of increasing letter sequence length. The findings support a hierarchical model of handwriting.