ABSTRACT
Van Galen and Weber (1998) studied the kinematics of handwriting upstrokes and downstrokes as a means to understand the nature of the handwriting motor program. eir aim was to see if the motor program was composed of discrete and integral sets of movement goals or whether the program was more generalized, re²ecting a segmented sequence of goal trajectories. In their study, 12 subjects were instructed to write a series of nonsense words. Pen movements were recorded on a digitizing tablet. During the writing task, the horizontal writing space was either kept the same or unexpectedly extended or shortened by 7%. e investigators found that vertical stroke amplitude adapted to these spatial constraints as they occurred, with upstrokes showing more of an adaptation than downstrokes.
