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Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread connectivity in brain
- lovegrenoble 2y agoThis has been known for a long time...
- cryptozeus 2y agoAnd the point is ?
- m463 2y agoMaybe typewriting correlates with the way neurons fire. nerve impulse -> finger impluse -> letter typed. Meanwhile handwriting requires fluid 3d motion of a multitude of muscles.
- throwaway519 2y agoThe paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.... DOI: doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSo the study's findings only hold where typewriting means typing "the presented word using the right index finger on the keyboard," i.e. like a pigeon. It looks like this was done because while handwriting is a unihemispheral activity, typing with both hands is not. But it trashes the results from a practical perspective.
- DennisP 2y agoWhich makes me wonder whether typing with both hands, hence using both hemispheres, actually results in more widespread connectivity in the brain.
- MiguelX413 2y agoThank you for presented the DOI too.
- thenipper 2y agoInteresting! Explains that even though I've used a laptop since 1992 to do school work because of my learning disabilities(Dysgraphia, mid-line problems, poor fine motor control) I still prefer to hand write my notes. Even if I never read them I noticed that just the act of doing them helps me remember things. I might not remember the source but I can remember the act of note taking. I've noticed the same thing with reading as well.
- jumping_frog 2y agoMultimodality reinforces each other. Action, speech, listening, all helping to let us understand a subject better.
- HPsquared 2y agoThis is why I think AI chatbots have so much potential for education. Every student can have extended dialogue about the topic and really exercise those neurons.
- breakfastduck 2y agoI think the widespread use of that for education would have precisely the opposite outcome that you'd want. Nothing sinks in to anyones brain because they're not actually talking about it and they don't need to actually learn it for any reason in school because they can just ask the chatbot again at any moment.
- woleium 2y agoand that is a problem because? i remember when maths teachers would scold me for not knowing my multiplication tables “are you going to carry a calculator around with you every day?” they would say when seeing me use one. Turns out i do.
- latexr 2y agoThat is such a tired, boring, selective memory meme. Did you not use a calculator later on in your education, say high school, for stuff like graphing and helping with equations? Do you not think educators in primary school teaching basic arithmetic knew about that? All our maths education is based on lies which are progressively disclosed. You’re told we can’t go below zero, that numbers are integers, that you can’t take the square root of a negative number… And slowly are introduced to all those concepts building on what you learned before. And yet this meme of “hur dur, mah teachers saids I’d haves no calculators on me but I use a phone all the time, epic fail” prevails instead of pondering for two seconds that maybe your teacher was giving a cookie-cutter argument that a literal child could comprehend but be unable to refute so they could continue with the damn lesson. And as if people use calculators that often. They don’t. Yet being able to do some basic arithmetic is useful in such simple areas as shopping, to make more informed decisions in a world that is constantly trying to trick you.
- squigz 2y ago> The experiment comprised a total of 30 trials, where each word appeared in two different conditions, presented in a randomized order. For each trial, participants were instructed to either (a) write in cursive with their right hand the presented word with a digital pen directly on the screen, or (b) type the presented word using the right index finger on the keyboard. Before each trial, the instruction write or type appeared before one of the target words appeared, and the participants were given 25 s to either write by hand or type the word multiple times, separated by a space. EEG data were recorded only during the first 5 s of each trial. To prevent artifacts produced by head and eye movements caused by shifting gaze between the screen and the keyboard, typed words did not appear on the screen while the participant was typewriting. The writings produced by the participants (see Figure 1 for example) were stored for offline analyses. I wonder what the effect would be when considering: a) proficiency to write in cursive b) touch typing ability
- jt2190 2y agoYes I would think that it would be difficult to distinguish between brain activity caused by learning a subject and brain activity caused by learning to write cursive.
- dgan 2y agoLinking this thread, because it already crossed my mind so many times https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863108
- jodrellblank 2y agoSince that thread, did you try tablets and eInk/ePaper devices?
- dgan 2y agoTablet, yes. As for reading, definitely better to read in the train than a phone screen. As for writing, didn't try
- dcow 2y agoCould a factor be that most people primarily typewrite now so it’s second nature muscle memory but the handwriting task requires just a little extra effort? I didn't see preexisting disposition factored in at all, so I’m curious.
- squigz 2y agoI think it's actually the opposite - most people can't touch type, so they spend more time and concentration trying to type, which means less focus on the actual content. I would think that handwriting is more muscle memory for most people, thus they can focus more on what they're writing, making connections to it, etc.
- vishnugupta 2y agoI didn't read the paper but does this mean if one learns to touch type then there's no difference?
- hakanderyal 2y agoThere aren’t any information in this study about if there were any touch typists. This would be an interesting variable to test for.
- squigz 2y agoThe typewriting participants were explicitly not touch typing - they were instructed to... type with a single index finger... > participants were instructed to either (a) write in cursive with their right hand the presented word with a digital pen directly on the screen, or (b) type the presented word using the right index finger on the keyboard.
- hk1337 2y agoI feel like this has been said before quite a bit but a lot of people always make excuses about how they’re the exception.
- HPsquared 2y agoMy the exception?
- hk1337 2y agoOops. Thanks
- danielbln 2y agoOr not everyone is the same (even ignoring the.. interesting stud design of the paper that excluded touch typists). When I would learn vocabulary in school for a secondary language, the teacher would always state how this is best done by writing everything by hand. I never ever saw observed that benefit and always felt that to be true for me. So I might be delusional, or there is something else at play here.
- jwrallie 2y agoThat’s true, but not everything is about recall. Sometimes you just want to record the information quickly in a searchable way and forget about it until the next time you need it. Not being able to recall something you do not want to might be a feature, and so is increasing the machine ability to recall it (as opposed to yours). Grepping text is always going to be more efficient than scanned handwritten paper notes.
- netbioserror 2y agoI made a point in college of taking handwritten notes (focusing on what I didn't know) and handwritten test cheat-sheets (even if they weren't allowed, simply as an exercise in summarizing). It helped in memorization and understanding tremendously.
- bastloing 2y agoTakes more brain cells to handwrite. I'd be interested in brain activity of qwerty vs dvorak keyboards, now there's a study
- onemoresoop 2y agoWhen handwritng you use some additional brain pathways to finely coordinate the hand. When typing you don’t need that but use a different one that learned the keyboard. I think using both is good to reinforce that knowledge.
- Stevvo 2y agoThe link sends me to an empty page that wants me sign to sign up to upload PDF files to an AI tool. It's not clear what this tool is for, or what relation, if any, it has to the headline. Flagged.
- dang 2y agoHN's software uses the canonical URL when it finds one and in this case it was bad (https://www.openread.academy/paper/reading?corpusId=null https://www.openread.academy/paper/reading?corpusId=null). We've reversed that now.
- westurner 2y agoI tried for a few minutes to find the HN thread where somebody refuted the "handwriting is better than typing" for fact recall claim. OTOH, IIRC, - EEG measures brain activation. It takes more of the brain to hand write than to type, and so it is unsurprising that there is more activation during a writing by hand activity than during a typing activity. - Do brain connectivity or neural activation correspond to favorable outcomes? - Synaptic pruning eliminates connectivity in the brain; and that is presumably advantageous. - Hyperconnectivity may be regarded as a disadvantage in discussions of neurodiversity. Witness recall from a network with intentional hyperconnectivity; too distracted by spurious activations? - That's a test of dumb recall, which is a test of trivia retention. - Is rote memorization the pinnacle of learning? To foster creative thinking and critical thinking, is trivia recall optimization ideal? - (Isn't it necessary to forget so much of what we've been taught in order to succeed.) - Is spaced repetition as or more effective than hand writing at increasing recall compared to passively listening? - With persons who have injury and/or disability that prevents them from handwriting, do they have adaptations that enable them to succeed despite "having to" type instead? - We don't hand write software; though some schools teach coding with pen and paper (and that somewhat reduces cheating, which confounds variance in success and retention). - We write tests for software; we can't efficiently automatedly test software for quality and correctness unless the code is typed. - Does anything ever grade, confirm, reject, or validate handwritten notes? - Are there studies of this that measure recall after typing, and then after handwriting, too? Edit: A, measure, B, measure; AND: B, measure, A, measure
- ElFitz 2y ago> I tried for a few minutes to find the HN thread where somebody refuted the "handwriting is better than typing" for fact recall claim. You would have found it, had you written it down. Kidding aside, is this the one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42288545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42288545
- westurner 2y agoThe one I recall had citations, I think
- kstenerud 2y agoI've been taking notes in a text editor since 1994. What I found was that taking notes via computer was much easier because I could finally keep up with what I'm taking notes about (typing is MUCH faster than writing), and could therefore spend more time considering the thing I'm taking notes on, rearrange things, group them, etc using simple keyboard commands. My impression is that my retention went way up and I had better understanding overall because I could discover the underlying patterns quicker when I was spending less time and energy encoding my thoughts into words.
- crazygringo 2y agoI am 100% the same. People often claim that taking notes by hand, because it is slow, forces you to interpret and condense what you are learning into a more compact representation, and therefore understand it better. That has never been the case for me -- while I'm busy doing that thinking, I missed the last 3 sentences from the lecturer, and then am struggling to catch up, and when I finally figure out what they're explaining again, there's no more time to write it down. But I can type faster than lecturers speak. And obviously you don't take notes verbatim either, just the gist of a sentence. Then after the seminar is over, I can go over the notes at my own pace to build my understanding. Details that didn't seem that relevant during the seminar, I suddenly realize are key. I really don't understand why people don't talk about this advantage more.
- freilanzer 2y ago> People often claim that taking notes by hand, because it is slow, forces you to interpret and condense what you are learning into a more compact representation, and therefore understand it better. > while I'm busy doing that thinking, I missed the last 3 sentences from the lecturer That's not the same kind of note-taking. The first is writing for understanding, the second is taking quick notes to avoid missing anything while the lecturer is talking.
- crazygringo 2y agoNo, I'm saying when I missed the last three sentences, now I don't even understand the lecture anymore. There's a variable written on the board and I don't know what it represents. And then by the time I figure it out, I haven't understood a bunch of previous points that depended on knowing what the variable was.
- blargey 2y ago"Allowing the use of (the fingers of) both hands would cause many unforeseen effects on the brain, which would make it hard to interpret the results" so all participants had to "type using the right index finger [only]". How does one rule out the relevance of those "unforeseen effects" when claiming to compare typing in general vs handwriting in general? The paper only contains that one line about the matter, in the "Participants" section. (also, do Norwegian university students in their early twenties normally write in cursive?)
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> when claiming to compare typing in general vs handwriting in general Yeah, the paper claims "whenever handwriting movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated, resulting in the formation of more complex neural network connectivity," which is bunk given the methodology.
- LocalH 2y agoWow. Junk science indeed. "Unforeseen effects on the brain" so you essentially test in a way that is incomparable to those who are experienced typists? If you're only using one finger to type, of course you're using less brain activity to control that one finger, versus all ten. I'm unable to read the actual paper, but from the comments here, it sure seems like they worked backwards from an existing premise ("handwriting is better than typing for retaining information") and found a way to make that "truth". Edit: Missed the link to the article in the comments. Reading it now.
- Forge36 2y agoThey give a recommendation for education, but didn't measure retention. I agree with their premise provided students don't know how to touch type (given the anecdotal amount of visual typing I've seen a reason concern for students) it's also interesting that it's cursive, which is being taught less.
- Forge36 2y agoI think it gets worse > To prevent artifacts produced by head and eye movements caused by shifting gaze between the screen and the keyboard, typed words did not appear on the screen while the participant was typewriting. So no only were typists not touch typing, they couldn't see what they were typing. Too many variables are changed between the two tests. A) writers can see whole words vs no visual feedback B) writers use their natural writing technique (2 or 3 fingers?) vs 1. It'd be interesting to test typing with a single hand (using words that can be entirely touch typed with one hand) I'm surprised the choose not to gather that data. https://repository.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2306&context=honors_etd https://repository.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2306&... Is interesting in that it shows the opposite effect: improved recall. It also measured velocity/speed of response. Which shows writing was faster. Another idea for a test: writing without ink.
- cjs_ac 2y agoWhen I did my teacher training fifteen or so years ago, we were told that information that was written down by hand was retained for longer than information that was typed. This article seems to correlate with what I was taught. However, there's no underlying theory to anything in psychology. Psychologists come up with things they call theories, but when you look at them a bit more closely, they're 'just-so stories' that happen to fit some experimental results. The experimental results themselves are shallow correlations between inputs and outputs. Prod the brain in this specific way, and see how it responds. EEG experiments like the one linked only tell us what bits of the brain respond to what stimuli; we don't know what's actually going on in forming a response to that stimulus. You can point to the ethics protocols by which experimenters are bound to not harm their subjects - these are important and worthy. You can point to the advertising industry's use of psychology to improve its effectiveness, but this is itself a shallow endeavour. As far as improving our understanding the brain as a physical system, the discipline of psychology is much activity with little achievement.
- dmd 2y agoBut this is not handwriting vs typing. It's handwriting vs. "a weird input method none of the participants had ever used before", namely pecking at the keyboard with one finger of one hand.
- deepsun 2y agoBut if the results were null, would anyone share and repost the article?
- richrichie 2y agoHence “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/
- pmarreck 2y agoNow do it with a Dvorak or Colemak layout. lol.
- Aardwolf 2y agoNeither handwriting nor typewriting existed while the brain evolved. Why does the more modern method have to be the bad one again?
- hx8 2y agoGenes that promote improved written communications could have been selected for even if you use cuneiform as the starting timeframe you are considering. Of course that isn't the real starting time. Cave paintings are 40k years old. How long ago did we begin drawing in the dirt with sticks?
- syndicatedjelly 2y ago> Neither handwriting nor typewriting existed while the brain evolved. Why is that relevant?
- tarboreus 2y agoI'm visually impaired and not being able to write in a notebook is one of the relatively few things I actually miss.
- utopicwork 2y ago[dead]
- DavideNL 2y ago...so, do i need to register to be able to see the article? (i see a blank page with the text "Someone has a copy - request"...)
- dang 2y agoFixed now - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42290219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42290219 for explanation.
- codr7 2y agoCrappy science aside, I second the findings, sort of. I always carry a notebook/pen with me, writing/drawing helps my brain process information in a way that doesn't happen with a keyboard. Whiteboards are even better, if slightly less portable.
- codr7 2y agoHey now dimwits, it's not like I'm forcing anyone, just sharing my experience.
- amai 2y agoIn the age of AGI why is handwriting recognition still so bad and not a mainstream technology? Why do I still have to painstakingly write math formulas in LaTeX instead of just writing them by hand? Why don't we write computer code by hand instead of typing it in and struggling with encodings? We have face/object recognition and audio recognition which is often better than humans. But handwriting recognition is still quite lacking. Are there technical reasons for that or is our monopolistic IT industry just focusing on the things nobody needs like Metaverses, Augmented Reality and Chatbots?
- amelius 2y agoBecause writing by hand is slower for most people, and makes editing difficult?
- squigz 2y agoWrite code... by hand? This is surely not a serious suggestion, right?
- Etheryte 2y agoI think the base premise of this comment is wrong? Apple has had many features like this available for a long time and it's hard to think of many things that are more mainstream technology. You can input text, equations and what have you with the Apple Pencil, you can scan your handwritten notes to text in Notes, etc, it's all already there.
- cortesoft 2y agoOh my god writing code by hand would be awful. I can type so much faster than I can write, and my hand doesn't start to hurt after a few words like it does when I write. Plus, how would code completion work with handwriting? I hate handwriting with a passion
- djtriptych 2y agoI do feel there's a leap in the ability to remain in flow while typing once you're past a certain (high) level of proficiency. Looking at what you're typing really interrupts flow for me, at least when writing prose. If I have a lot of writing to do, I almost always write longer passages with my eyes either closed or gazing at something other than the screen. When my thought is complete I open my eyes and do a few edits on whatever typos made it through. I also do almost all of my writing in vim, so I never have to context switch between mouse and keyboard.
- Grimblewald 2y agoStudies like this are why I lost my respect for the field, and left it a long time ago. I have not since regained my respect for psychology as a general field. Things like this are published all too frequently. It is demonstrated that playing piano has positive effects on neural development, a task largely analogous to typing. Learning / honing any novel skill will have that effect. If you are pushing your the limits of your knowledge or skill-set and are improving, then your brain has to be adapting to things. If one group is simply typing characters, one at a time, using one finger, of course nothing is going on in the brain. What aspect of the brain at that point is begin challenged? If anything I'd expect this task to result in a reduction of connectivity.
- gnuuser 2y agoIN MICE.
- dyauspitr 2y agoAs an anecdote, I memorize things very easily when I write them down by hand but typing never has the same effect.
- hambes 2y agoYeah, sounds honestly very obvious. Writing by hand is much more complicated than writing with a typewriter. However, nothing about the brain activity suggests that the increased learning effect has anything to do with the content of what is written. I propose that the increased brain activity is exclusively because one learns _to write_, but not what is written.
- cryptozeus 2y agoJust a note about “ so all participants had to "type using the right index finger [only]"…I should have put this in the title however lots of people over the age of 50 type like this i.e. my parents