Effects of different training conditions in the acquisition of a handwriting task

Abstract

The present article reports a handwriting experiment on the learning of four Arabic letters, by novice writers of Arabic script. One group of subjects, called copiers, copied the experimental graphemes from a visual presentation which remained present during the full course of task execution. The other group, called planners, was forced into a mental planning stage. In this group, stimulus presentation was ended before task execution started. The experiment was subdivided in three consecutive stages: pretest, training stage and posttest. General effects of practice were measured by the comparison of means of reaction time, movement time and writing dysfluency in a pre- and posttest, in which both training groups performed the same graphemes with identical copying conditions. In order to reveal differential practice effects as a function of training technique, the relation was analyzed between reaction time and movement time of an initial segment. A general learning effect was expressed in the decrease of movement time and writing dysfluency. This decrease, however, was significantly less in the first writing segment than in subsequent segments. In the training stage, effects of practice were measured by analyzing the trade off between simple reaction time and movement time as a function of consecutive trials. The analyses revealed a differential effect of practice on this trade off for the two training groups. The results are discussed from a theoretical, cognitive viewpoint, which defends that the learning process can be characterized by the advanced preparation of increasingly larger and more abstract chunks, during the reaction time phase of a task. Simultaneously, the amount of on-line processing of more detailed motor instructions, during real-time execution, increases as a result of practice.