A Comparative Study Of Cognitive Process Between Keyboard Typing And Handwriting

Keyboard typing and handwriting are used most commonly in daily life. Although the conceptual knowledge of written language can be the same, the motor activity, spatial activity and cognitive process involved are rather different. Chinese input with keyboard, instead of handwriting, has reduced the process of grapheme which plays a crucial role in Chinese character recognition. Moreover, the use of pinyin input methods has caused a great change of cognition processing from grapheme to phonology. As a result, cognitive process is restructured.In the first experiment, the subjects are required to copy one meaningless paragraph by typing and handwriting, followed by a memory test. In the second experiment, the subjects are required to copy three meaningful paragraphs of different level by typing or by handwriting, also followed by a memory test. In the dynamic process of typing, all operations and data are automatically recorded by software, even including input time of each character.The results suggest that the speed of handwriting is faster than typing. In the recall of meaningless paragraph, the main effect of speed is significant. The group of medium speed contributes more than that of low speed in terms of recall. There is significant difference between handwriting and typing in recall of meaningful paragraphs. Handwriting has a superior recall effect in the beginning and middle of material than typing. The recall of single Chinese character is significant positively correlated with corresponding input time. The no.1 characters in the first column of chosen frame are fastest with lowest recall.As indicated, keyboard typing and handwriting differ in speed and recall, due to difference in motor conditions, cognitive processing and attention allocation.