Writing in two different scripts promotes fine motor control

Biscriptuality is the ability to write in two different scripts. Achieving handwriting expertise in a single script demands years of intensive practice, and these demands are even stronger when two scripts must be mastered. Biscriptuality could thus impact the cognitive and motor skills underlying g...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cortex 2024-10, Vol.179, p.247-260
Main Authors: Alhaddad, G., Dione, M., Danna, J., Alario, F.-X., Honnorat, A., Velay, J.-L., Gilhodes, J.-C., Longcamp, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biscriptuality
Cognitive science
Fine motor control
Graphomotor control
Handwriting
Life Sciences
Neurons and Cognition
Psychology and behavior
Working memory
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Summary:Biscriptuality is the ability to write in two different scripts. Achieving handwriting expertise in a single script demands years of intensive practice, and these demands are even stronger when two scripts must be mastered. Biscriptuality could thus impact the cognitive and motor skills underlying graphomotor control. Here, we aimed at establishing that biscriptuality enhances graphomotor control, and at testing whether biscriptuals have better fine motor skills and working memory performance compared to Latin monoscriptuals. We found that biscriptuals perform better than monoscriptuals on graphomotor tasks, and on 3 types of fine motor control tasks indexing dexterity, motor timing under spatial constraints, and spontaneous motor tempo; the two groups did not significantly differ in their working memory performance. These results demonstrate that writing expertise widely impacts the organization of the motor system.
ISSN:0010-9452
1973-8102
1973-8102
DOI:10.1016/j.cortex.2024.07.016