本帖最后由 满仓 于 2014-9-12 09:59 编辑
【中文标题】写字越来越少，我们失去了什么？
【原文标题】What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】MARIA KONNIKOVA
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?src=me
写字重要吗？
在很多教育者看来，不那么重要。大部分州所采取的“共同核心标准”要求学生们工整地书写，但仅仅是在幼儿园和一年级。之后，重点就转移到熟练的键盘输入上。
但是心理学家和神经学家说，宣布写字已经成为历史的遗迹还为时过早。有新的迹象显示写字与教育发展有深层次的关系。
当孩子刚开始学习写字的时候，不仅会阅读得更快，而且还可以更好地记忆，有更好的想法。换句话说，重要的不是我们写什么，而是怎么写。
巴黎法兰西学院的心理学家Stanislas Dehaene说：“我们写字的时候，一种特殊的神经回路被激活。书写的笔画带动了认知的过程，这是大脑中模拟的认知过程。这个过程似乎在以一种我们无法意识到的方式起作用，学习变得更加轻松。”
2012年，印第安纳大学的心理学家Karin James所进行的研究，为这个观点提供了支持的证据。给一些还没有学习过阅读和书写的孩子看一个字母，或者是一张卡片上的图形，然后让他们用以下三种方式画出这个图形：在一张有虚线的纸上临摹；在一张空白的纸上书写；在电脑上用键盘打出。然后再次让他们看这个图形，同时扫描他们的大脑。
研究人员发现，第二种书写方式起到了最好的作用。当孩子们在白纸上随意书写的时候，他们大脑里的三个部位活动非常明显，这是成年人在进行阅读和书写时需要使用到的部位：左梭状回、内额下回和后顶页皮质。
与此相比，在键盘上敲击和沿虚线临摹的孩子们没有展示出这样的效果，他们大脑的这些反应非常微弱。
James博士认为这其中的原因在于随手涂鸦内在的混乱本质。当我们沿一条既定的虚线书写，我们不但需要事先计划和执行，而且还有可能创造出一个充满变数的结果。
这些不确定的结果就是一个学习工具。James博士说：“如果一个孩子写出一个乱七八糟的字，这或许会帮助他认识这个字。”
印第安纳大学的心理学家Karin James使用扫描仪来观察写字如何影响儿童大脑的活动。
我们的大脑必须要了解，例如，字母“a”的各种呈现方式都是一个意思，无论是怎么写出来的。能够识别每一种“a”的样子，要比重复观看一种样子产生更强烈的印象。
James博士说：“这只是大脑因行为而改变的诸多例子之一。”
在另一项研究中，James博士比较那些动手书写文字的孩子，与看别人写字的孩子之间的差别。观察的结果表明，只有具体的动作才能引起大脑的变化，从而让人们在写字的过程中受益。
写字的效果不仅仅限于识字。华盛顿大学的心理学家Virginia Berninger对小学二年级到五年级的学生进行研究，结果显示印刷、手写和键盘敲击等动作与不同的脑部活动有关，也都会产生完全不同的效果。当孩子们手写文字时，他们不但比使用键盘的孩子可以更快地拼写出更多的词语，而且还有表达出更多的想法。最古老个体的大脑图像显示，写字与观点的产生关系更加深远。当孩子们被要求为一篇作文设想一些主题时，写字更好的孩子们大脑中与记忆有关的部位更加活跃，进而整体促进与阅读和书写有关的能力。
不仅如此，似乎还有迹象显示印刷体和手写体之间也有差别，在手写体教学逐渐淡出课程表之后，这个差别显得尤为重要。书写障碍症通常是脑部受损导致书写能力受到损害，这种损害表现的方式不同：有的人手写体能力未受影响，有的人印刷体书写能力未受影响。
孩子们手写字母的样本。James博士发现，当孩子们随意书写一个字母时，他们大脑的三个主要部位极为活跃。当他们临摹或在键盘上敲击时，没有出现这样的现象。
在失读症的病例中，有的人不能识别印刷字体，但依然可以识别手写体，反之亦然。说明这两种书写方式与大脑的不同部位有关，两种字体要比一种字体调动更多的认知资源。
Berninger博士进一步认为，手写体对自控能力的训练方式，其它书写模式无法替代，有些研究人士甚至认为可以将其作为治疗读写障碍症的一个方法。2012年的一份报告显示，手写体对于慢性读写障碍症有特殊的疗效，它可以有效防止字母的方向颠倒。
无论是否手写体，写字所带来的好处不仅限于幼年期。对成年人来说，打字或许比手写速度更快、效率更高，但是效率影响了我们处理新信息的能力。通过书写来记忆不仅让我们学习得更好，记忆力和学习能力也同时得到了提高。
普林斯顿大学的Pam A. Mueller和加利福尼亚州大学的Daniel M. Oppenheimer两位心理学家指出，在实验室环境和真实的课堂环境中，写字做笔记的学生比敲击键盘做笔记的学生成绩要好。原因并不是早期研究所显示的电脑会让人分神，而是在于写字让学生有能力吸收授课的内容并复述，这个复制和补充的过程强化了理解和记忆的能力。
并不是所有的专家都同意写字会带来这么大的好处，但是对此持怀疑态度的耶鲁心理学家Paul Bloom说，新的研究至少会让人们重新思考这个问题。
“把字用笔记录下来这个过程强迫你去关注重点，”他思考了一下，继续说，“或许这会让你更好地思考。”
原文：
Does handwriting matter?
Not very much, according to many educators. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.
But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.
“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.
“And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.”
A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, lent support to that view. Children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer. They were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again.
The researchers found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex.
By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker.
Dr. James attributes the differences to the messiness inherent in free-form handwriting: Not only must we first plan and execute the action in a way that is not required when we have a traceable outline, but we are also likely to produce a result that is highly variable.
That variability may itself be a learning tool. “When a kid produces a messy letter,” Dr. James said, “that might help him learn it.”
Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, used a scanner to see how handwriting affected activity in children’s brains.
Our brain must understand that each possible iteration of, say, an “a” is the same, no matter how we see it written. Being able to decipher the messiness of each “a” may be more helpful in establishing that eventual representation than seeing the same result repeatedly.
“This is one of the first demonstrations of the brain being changed because of that practice,” Dr. James said.
In another study, Dr. James is comparing children who physically form letters with those who only watch others doing it. Her observations suggest that it is only the actual effort that engages the brain’s motor pathways and delivers the learning benefits of handwriting.
The effect goes well beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product. When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas. And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.
It now appears that there may even be a difference between printing and cursive writing — a distinction of particular importance as the teaching of cursive disappears in curriculum after curriculum. In dysgraphia, a condition where the ability to write is impaired, sometimes after brain injury, the deficit can take on a curious form: In some people, cursive writing remains relatively unimpaired, while in others, printing does.
Samples of handwriting by young children. Dr. James found that when children drew a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three significant areas of the brain, which didn’t happen when they traced or typed the letter.
In alexia, or impaired reading ability, some individuals who are unable to process print can still read cursive, and vice versa — suggesting that the two writing modes activate separate brain networks and engage more cognitive resources than would be the case with a single approach.
Dr. Berninger goes so far as to suggest that cursive writing may train self-control ability in a way that other modes of writing do not, and some researchers argue that it may even be a path to treating dyslexia. A 2012 review suggests that cursive may be particularly effective for individuals with developmental dysgraphia — motor-control difficulties in forming letters — and that it may aid in preventing the reversal and inversion of letters.
Cursive or not, the benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, memory and learning ability in general may benefit.
Two psychologists, Pam A. Mueller of Princeton and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los Angeles, have reported that in both laboratory settings and real-world classrooms, students learn better when they take notes by hand than when they type on a keyboard. Contrary to earlier studies attributing the difference to the distracting effects of computers, the new research suggests that writing by hand allows the student to process a lecture’s contents and reframe it — a process of reflection and manipulation that can lead to better understanding and memory encoding.
Not every expert is persuaded that the long-term benefits of handwriting are as significant as all that. Still, one such skeptic, the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, says the new research is, at the very least, thought-provoking.
“With handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what’s important,” he said. He added, after pausing to consider, “Maybe it helps you think better.”
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