Attentional Resources Allocation Process in Different Modes of Handwriting Control

Publisher Summary There are several modes of handwriting control, including tracing, copying, and free-hand writing. This chapter discusses differentiation between tracing and copying and provides an insight into the nature of resources allocation in these modes of handwriting control. The chapter discusses the nature of resources allocation related to motor initiation and execution. Because the distribution of processing resources related to motor initiation and execution processes might possibly be reflected by handwriting pressure, it is hypothesized that if more processing capacity is distributed to the motor initiation and motor execution processes during tracing, the handwriting pressure under tracing would be heavier than copying. In the study discussed in the chapter, it was found that with the employment of writing pressure as a dependent variable, tracing was complexity-independent (i.e., handwriting pressure did not rise with an increase in stimulus complexity), whereas free-hand writing was complexity dependent (i.e., writing pressure rose as the task complexity increased). These modes of handwriting control (tracing, copying, and freehand) could be differentiated in terms of their respective cardiac and respiratory activities, thereby suggesting that various modes of handwriting control might place different demands on the various aspects of the information processing system.