Hand in Hand

In my recent endeavor to cut back on paper consumption, I've converted bank statements to digital versions, put a stop to mail catalogs, and have been doing most of my reading and writing online.

Speaking of, I've also been writing for www.Miller-McCune.com including their blog Today in Mice--check it if you like the kind of stuff you're reading here. But I diverge, the real issue that I'm blogging about today goes with reading/writing on the computer.

There's one bit of paper that I can't eliminate from my life; it's the writing that I do while I read science. At first I thought it was just a habit, scribbling notes and flow charts in the margins of scientific papers. But when I keep notes on the computer, without pen in hand, the information seems to trickle away like a lost train of thought.

A recent study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience suggests that it may be better to learn by writing (with your hand that is). In other words, learning and motor function go hand in hand.

Scientists from the Universite Paul Sabatier, the Universite de La Mediterranee and the Hopital de La Timone in France primarily interested in how we learn characters or symbols for written language, gave twelve subjects new characters to learn, either by handwriting or typing them. When tested, the individuals remembered the the funny lines and loop-d-loops and their orientation best when they were practiced by handwriting. Using motor skills to hit a key--even though the time spent on the task was equivalent--didn't cut it.

One intriguing aspect of the study is that the researchers used brain imaging to compare the neural pathways involved in both processes. Broca's area, historically associated with speech, is gaining recognition for a more broad role in language. The authors discern that the “left Broca's area activation seems to depend on the motor knowledge associated with the characters.”

This research is directly relevant to children learning to write. My preschool aged daughter, obsessed with the computer, sees me typing and wants to do her writing too. Letting her practice her letters with enlarged fuschia-font, I used to feel pretty good about the exercise. While the activity is not detrimental, I now make an extra effort to have her put in sufficient time with paper and pencil.

Taking the research to the level of comprehension may be speculative but the direct implications of this study and my anecdotal evidence is keeping paper in our lives.

Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes, J., Anton, J., Roth, M., Nazarian, B., Velay, J. (2008). Learning through Hand- or Typewriting Influences Visual Recognition of New Graphic Shapes: Behavioral and Functional Imaging Evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(5), 802-815. DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20504