VARIATIONAL FACTOR IN HANDWRITING 153 



psychologists and pathologists, particularly in connection with the 

 investigation of agraphia, that is, loss or impairment of the power 

 to write. But the interest in snch difficulties has centered largely in 

 the fact that study of them might contribute to the physiological 

 problem of the localization of cerebral function. If more than this, 

 the interest has iisually limited itself to an analysis of the situation in 

 sensory terms; the details of the resulting expression have been but 

 little studied. The growing interest in the psychology of lapses, both 

 linguistic and graphic, and the development of a technique for such 

 study is of great promise. In the case of the graphic lapse there is 

 need not merely of the tabulation of what kind of errors are made, 

 but also a reproduction of the writing in which the errors are found. 

 Will such writing show characteristic variations in amplitude, pressure, 

 and the like? 



Even apart from the question as to the effect of a " hitch " in the 

 process upon the appearance of writing, we may ask whether the general 

 appearance and characteristics of writing are affected by the type of 

 thought-process normal for any given individual. An intensive study 

 of imagery types has always recognized, although with considerable 

 divergence of opinion as to details, the varieties of the word-image. 

 The word mentally seen or heard, spoken or written, has been found to 

 play an important part in the complex thought-processes that underlie 

 the consciousness of meaning and the possibility of its expression. The 

 question of significance here is how far one sort of verbal imagery is 

 potent in initiating the written word of any individual and whether any 

 difference in written gesture marks off the individual who habitually 

 indulges himself in visual imagery from the man who is more motor 

 in type or more dependent upon auditory images. 



Back even of this question lies the more deep-cutting one of the 

 significance to the whole mental life of the predominance of the sensa- 

 tions, perceptions and images of a ruling sense. At what point and to 

 what extent in the process of learning to write does the visual-motor 

 coordination fall under the ruling sense and what effect has such 

 subordination upon the general appearance and character of the result- 

 ing chirography? One feels certain that the handwriting of the 

 man visually inclined must differ from that of the man preoccupied 

 with motor details, but is unable to specify the difference. Yet the 

 problem does not remain insoluble, for there are simple methods of 

 determining the part played by each sense in control of the writing of 

 any individual. Accompanying sensations such as those of sight and 

 sound may be eliminated from the situation and the effect noted; or 

 conflict with visual or auditory or motor images may be introduced and 

 the results recorded. The investigation of the varieties of writing- 

 control with the relation of each to writing-appearance offers a tempting 

 field for work. But here speculation must wait upon the facts. 



