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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Digital Handwriting Analysis of Characters in Chinese Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published on: March 11, 2021
Hemispheric differences in processing handwritten cursive
Joseph B Hellige1, Maheen M Adamson
1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061, USA. hellige@usc.edu
Abstract:
Hemispheric asymmetry was examined for native English speakers identifying consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) non-words presented in standard printed form, in standard handwritten cursive form or in handwritten cursive with the letters separated by small gaps. For all three conditions, fewer errors occurred when stimuli were presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) than to the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) and qualitative error patterns indicated that the last letter was missed more often than the first letter on LVF/RH trials but not on RVF/LH trials. Despite this overall similarity, the RVF/LH advantage was smaller for both types of cursive stimuli than for printed stimuli. In addition, the difference between first-letter and last-letter errors was smaller for handwritten cursive than for printed text, especially on LVF/RH trials. These results suggest a greater contribution of the right hemisphere to the identification of handwritten cursive, which is likely related visual complexity and to qualitative differences in the processing of cursive versus print.
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