Influence of motor disorders on the visual perception of human movements in a case of peripheral dysgraphia

We report the case of a 71 year-old female patient (DC) with a left parietal lesion resulting in a peripheral dysgraphia essentially characterized by difficulties in letter sequences writing. The aim of our experiments was to analyze the influence of motor difficulties on the visual perception of both writing and reaching movements. Results showed a strong link between motor and perceptual performance. For reaching movements, performances in both production and perception tasks conform to the motor principles identified in healthy subjects (Fitts' law and motor anticipation). By contrast, for handwriting movements, DC's productions do not follow the motor principles usually observed in normal subjects (isochrony principle, motor anticipation) and in perception the same results were observed. The motor references used by DC in the visual perception of writing movement were not the laws of movement but rather her own way of writing. Taken together these data strongly suggest that motor competences is involved in the visual perception of human movements. They are discussed in the general framework of the simulation theory.