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Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy

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Cognitive effects of English brush handwriting: the case of visualspatial aptitude

Henry S.R. Kao
a b a b

, Wai S. Lui , Meilin Guan & Hui Cao

Department of Psychology, Fu Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan

Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China

c

Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China Version of record first published: 02 Jul 2012.

To cite this article: Henry S.R. Kao , Wai S. Lui , Meilin Guan & Hui Cao (2012): Cognitive effects of English brush handwriting: the case of visualspatial aptitude, Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 3:2, 190-201 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507686.2012.703443

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Asia Pacic Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy Vol. 3, No. 2, September 2012, 190201

Cognitive effects of English brush handwriting: the case of visualspatial aptitude

Henry S.R. Kaoa,b* , Wai S. Luib , Meilin Guanc and Hui Caoc
a Department of Psychology, Fu Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan; b Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China; c Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China

(Received July 2011; nal version received November 2011)

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Chinese calligraphic handwriting (CCH) involves a process of visualspatial patterning of the characters as well as the motor control of the brush to follow specic character congurations through a projection of the cognitive images of the character. Past research has shown that this CCH act facilitates perceptual and cognitive abilities. One study showed a differentiating reaction time effect of brush writing in relation to symmetric and asymmetric Chinese character structures. Another study conrmed the effect of closure in character composition on visualspatial ability of the practitioner through brush handwriting. Recognizing that different visualspatial structuring of English alphabet could have different psychological impacts, this study examined whether brush writing of English letters could have similar effect on the practitioners visualspatial ability as that of Chinese brush handwriting. Because both the process of brush handwriting and the closed form of visualspatial representation were common in the execution of Chinese and English scripts, the closed English letters would also advance the practitioners general visualspatial aptitude in terms of their enhanced cognitive capability to detect two- and three-dimensional cues. This expectation was conrmed to be in line with that found in the practice of Chinese brush handwriting with Chinese characters. This nding was accounted for by a common action grammar of handwriting between Chinese and English scripts. The implication is that the outcomes arising from brush handwriting using one script would be applicable to those of the other script. This view, therefore, suggests the plausible generality of handwriting theories and practical applications between the two writing systems. Keywords: Chinese calligraphy; English brush handwriting; cognitive effect

Background Chinese calligraphy Calligraphy is simply dened as beautiful writing (Fagg, 1984). Chinese calligraphy, the writing of Chinese characters by hand through a soft-tipped brush, is, for centuries, regarded as one of the ne arts in China. Chinese people have used brush writing as a means of conveying thoughts and their expressions in peculiar visual forms. The study of Chinese calligraphy in the past has focused mainly on how to execute and appreciate it artistically by following the practical experiences of the great masters. In the last three decades,

*Corresponding author. Email: kaohenry@hotmail.com

ISSN 2150-7686 print/ISSN 2150-7708 online 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507686.2012.703443 http://www.tandfonline.com

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psychologists have investigated the psychological processes of Chinese calligraphic handwriting (CCH) from the perspectives of perception, cognition, psychophysiology, emotion and motor behaviour (Kao, 2006).

Cognitive aspects of Chinese brush handwriting Over the last two decades, our research has demonstrated the practice of CCH being capable of improving ones visual attention and perception and cognitive activation. Besides a general brush writing system of Chinese brush writing, some of the cognitive effects and improvement from its practice are reviewed in the following sections (Kao, 2010). Three series of studies have been discussed below. The rst study was concerned with the brush writing effects on cognitive responses. For the post-task cognitive effects of brush handwriting, the subjects performed better in a word-naming task when the characters were presented in their left visual eld. Figure identication and form discrimination tasks were similarly improved (Guo, Gao, & Kao, 1993). The second study on post-CCH effect showed a signicant reaction time (RT) reduction in both hemispheres for subjects with, but not those without, CCH experience (Gao, 1994). The third study further indicated that the right hemisphere RT reduction was more distinct for calligraphers with more than 15 years of CCH experience (Guo & Kao, 1991). The second series of experiments has shown that the CCH practice improves ones abilities in visual attention, spatial ability, perceptual speed and accuracy, spatial relations and abstract reasoning, as well as in response facilitation, short-term memory and pictorial memory. Finally, preliminary event-related potential (ERP) data obtained before and after the CCH training disclosed a signicant increase of cortical activation in the experimental subjects, but not in the controls (Kao, Gao, Miao, & Liu, 2004). These ndings have given preliminary support to our theoretical position that brushes handwriting functions to enhance some aspects of our perceptual as well as cognitive processing. On the basis of the above ndings, the third series of studies focused on cognitive intervention with brush handwriting. In the case of mild retardation, the treatment resulted in increased visual attention, reasoning, judgement and cognitive speed and accuracy, hand steadiness and control precision (Kao, Hu & Zhang, 2009). For the patients with Alzheimers disease, the treatment improved their short-term memory, concentration, temporal and spatial orientation, as well as motor coordination. The normal elderly patients also improved in their spatial ability and pictorial memory after the treatment (Kao, Gao, Wang, Cheung, & Chiu, 2000; Kwok, Bai, Kao, Li, & Ho, 2011).

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English calligraphy and English brush handwriting English calligraphy usually refers to formal penmanship and the writing of Roman alphabet and its variant forms (Fagg, 1984). Like Chinese handwriting, English handwriting mostly involves the control and coordination of the muscles of the ngers, hand and arm, subject to visual guidance and monitoring (Kao, Mak, & Lam, 1986; Van Galen & Teulings, 1983). With brush handwriting, it denotes that handwriting is penned using a brush or, in other words, with the manipulation of the movement of the brush and, in particular, its tip. With the softness of a Chinese brush, rather than ball pen, fountain pen, pencil and so on, the calligraphic effect, which transforms the at surface into an imaginary three-dimensional (3D) reality, could be produced. Handwriting with a brush in English or Chinese could also induce greater demand on the duration and magnitude of force application.

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For studies of English handwriting as well as English calligraphy, the proper units of investigation should be alphabets, rather than strokes. According to Teulings, Thomassen, and Van Galen (1983) and Hulstijn and Van Galen (1983), handwriting in English is learnt and practiced as letters and that ones reaction time is more affected by alphabets than strokes. It is reasonable that the most basic form of meaningful written script in English handwriting should be the alphabets. Of all the styles of English alphabets, the Foundational Hand in its lowercase and uppercase forms is most similar to those of Chinese calligraphy. It contains varying lengths of strokes and requires generally more concentration to execute than letters with identical stroke length, for example Printing Style. Further, this style requires greater number of changes in the lengths of the strokes during writing than other styles and thus would induce more calligraphic effects during the brush writing act.

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Closure of Chinese characters and visualspatial aptitude In accordance with the gestalt principles, the concept of topological visual structures, To (1997) examined the effects of the closedness of Chinese characters on human visualspatial ability. To measure changes due to brush writing practice, 2D and 3D Space Relations subtests were administered before and after each of the two sessions of handwriting of 30 minutes each. The outcomes indicated that there was a correlation between Chinese brush handwriting and ones visualspatial ability. In addition, the practice of Chinese brush handwriting was found to improve ones scores on the visualspatial aptitude test. Moreover, Tos results also showed that the visualspatial aptitude could be enhanced by practising closed Chinese characters but not by the unclosed characters. It was thus concluded that the closedness of characters could arouse the visual sensitivity, which would strengthen the visualspatial aptitude of the practitioners of brush handwriting.

Effects of brush handwriting of English letters on visualspatial aptitude: the case of closure in letter structure This study was the rst that attempted to evaluate whether the outcomes of Tos study (1997) could be generalized to English brush handwriting or calligraphy. Understanding that different spatial arrangements of English alphabets could have different psychological impacts; the objectives of this experiment were to investigate whether the brush writing of English calligraphy would have the same positive inuence on human visualspatial ability as that of Chinese calligraphy discussed in the previous sections. In line with previous studies, a soft brush would be used as the handwriting tool, tracing as the writing mode and English alphabets as the unit of writing to examine whether the gestalt principle of congural superiority effect and the concept of topological structure could be applied in English handwriting as well. In short, the effect of both closed and unclosed English alphabets on the visualspatial abilities would be tested and critically scrutinized. The present experiment focused on such aspects that had not been reported in the previous studies. As brush handwriting involves more twodimensional (2D) visual cues such as size, shape, sharpness of edge and the absence of 3D features suggesting the characteristic of depth, it was speculated that the improvement of the 2D visualspatial ability would be greater than that of the 3D visualspatial ability.

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Participants Our sample was composed of 60 bilingual participants who were uent in both Chinese and English. Among them, there were 40 males and 20 females and 46 undergraduates and 14 postgraduates. Their mean age was 24 years. None of them had any formal experience in calligraphic writing, nor did they involve in any visualspatial test before.

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Instrumentation Two testing instruments were used in this experiment; one was to measure the visual spatial ability and the other was for the purpose of mental manipulation. To measure the visualspatial ability, the experimental apparatus used the Space Relations subtest from the multiple aptitude tests (MATs) that was designed by Segel and Raskin (1984). Two approaches would be used to measure ones ability to construct space relations in this subtest. First, in the test of structural visualization, the participants would be asked to visualize assembled objects from various patterns. Second, in the test of the measurement of Space Relations, the participants were requested to imagine how objects would appear if they were disintegrated in various ways. Testretest reliability of the test was 0.60.84, whereas the validity was 0.780.95. Mental manipulation of objects in 2D and 3D spaces was used. The same 24 items of the 2D and 23 items of 3D MAT subtests were employed in the pretest and post-test on visualspatial ability; however, the order of the questions was randomly rearranged to minimize the practice effect. Other tools used, including a medium-sized Chinese brush pen, a Chinese ink plate with black ink, pieces of A4 size rice papers and a stimuli sheet, were distributed to each participant. At the end of each writing session, the participants were signalled with a bip sound produced by a watch.

Stimuli Generally, there are two types of English alphabets, the closed and the unclosed. The English calligraphic style of Foundational Hand was used in this study. The stimulus patterns for the closed group included B or D in uppercase and a or d in lowercase. Those stimuli selected for the unclosed group was E or L in uppercase and f or w in lowercase. For each type of writing, eight alphabets were included. In each stimuli sheet (size of A4 paper), eight stimuli were arrayed in three different orders to form a total of 24 stimuli patterns in four columns. The size of each stimulus was about 4 cm 4 cm with a spacing of 1.5 cm.

Procedure Before the commencement of the experiment, all participants were subject to a pretest, which was divided into two sessions: one on 2D and another on 3D visualspatial aptitudes, respectively. Time allowance for each test would be 6 minutes. Then, they were randomly divided into four groups: two experimental and two control groups. The experimental conditions were writing closed and unclosed English alphabets within 30 minutes, whereas the control conditions were reading the same closed and unclosed English letters within the identical time duration.

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For the experimental groups, the subjects were instructed to place the rice paper on top of the stimuli sheet and trace the letters as precisely as they could. They were requested to write from the top to bottom and from left to right and write as many as they could within the given 30 minutes. Before that the participants were also given 3 minutes to familiarize with the writing process. For the control groups, they were commanded to focus their attention on one particular alphabet for 1 minute (the average speed in writing a letter in the experimental groups) and read it out until they were signalled by a bip sound at the last second of every minute. The same directional instruction, from top to bottom and from left to right, was given. After that, all participants did a post-test rst on 3D sub-scale of the DAT (Differential Aptitude Test) test, followed by that on 2D DAT test. Compared to the pretest, the sequence of the two subtests in the post-test was reversed so as to minimize the order effect. Again the time allowance for each test was 6 minutes.

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Design The study involved a 2 2 2 mixed-subject factorial design with two between-subject independent variables and another within-subject variable. For the former, they included the modes of exposure to English calligraphy (writing or reading) and the forms of English letters (closed or unclosed); for the latter, it referred to the types of visualspatial test involved (2D or 3D). Concerning the dependent variable, it referred to the difference of scores between the pretest of the 2D and 3D visualspatial aptitude.

Results Figure 1 presents a summary of the mean score of the difference between the pre- and post-writing effects on the 2D and 3D visualspatial aptitude by the two groups of participants writing closed and unclosed English letters. For the experimental group writing closed calligraphy, its mean difference in the 2D aptitude was the largest and increased to 2.7 points. Similarly, the tracing of closed English letter enhanced the mean post-tracing 3D aptitude test scores with an increase of 2.15 points. For both comparisons, the effects of writing unclosed letters made little changes in either 2D or 3D test results. For the control
3 2.7 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.65 0.5 0 0.3 Writing closed Writing unclosed Reading closed 0.1 Reading unclosed 2.15 2D visualspatial perception 3D visualspatial perception

Average difference between pre- and post-test

1.3

1.2

1.2

Figure 1. Mean difference ratings of experimental and control groups.

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Average difference between pre- and post-scores 3 Writing 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.9 0.82 0.65 2.43 1.87 Reading Average between writing and reading

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0.75

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Closed Uncolosed Forms of calligraphy

Figure 2. Mean difference ratings for closedness of calligraphy.

group performing the reading of English letters, the difference between mean scores of the 2D tests before and after the reading task was insignicant, with 1.2 points for both the closed and unclosed letters. Figure 2 denotes the results on the main effects for the difference between the two forms of English calligraphy: the closed and unclosed alphabets. A three-way mixed-subject ANOVA revealed that the closure of the alphabets, when compared with the unclosed alphabets, had a signicantly greater impact on human visualspatial aptitude (F = 5.71; df = 1, p = 0.02). Likewise, the modes of exposure and the writing and reading of English alphabets were also found to be signicantly different, with the former greater than the latter (F = 9.51, df = 1, p = 0.003). In addition, there was also a signicant interaction effect between the modes of exposure (writing and reading) and English forms of calligraphy (closed and unclosed) (F = 4.332, df = 1, p = 0.042). Post hoc comparisons using Fishers protected t-tests showed that only the obtained t-value between the closed and unclosed alphabets (t = 2.74) and that of the writing and reading closed alphabets (t = 2.58) than the critical value (t = 1.984). These results have conrmed that only the writing of closed letters could improve the general visualspatial aptitude. Figure 3 displays the main effect of two dimensions of the visualspatial aptitude. The average mean difference for the 2D test at 1.70 points was found to be signicantly greater than that for the 3D test (F = 9.69, df = 1, p = 0.003). This signies that the exposure to English alphabets made greater advancement on our 2D visualspatial ability than that on the 3D visualspatial ability.

Discussion Association between topological structure and visualspatial perception The ndings of this experiment have provided striking evidence for Chens concept of topological structure and the Gestalt principle of closure in human visual perception. As the main effect of form was signicant and closed alphabets could improve the general visual spatial ability, our ndings supported the notion that the topological structure of closed images was not identical with that of the unclosed ones, just as the topological property of circles is different than that of the rings (Chen, 1982). Moreover, with the stable impact of

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Writing Reading Average between writing and reading 1.38 0.98

0.5 0.2 0 2D 3D Dimensions of visualspatial aptitude

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Figure 3. Mean difference ratings for dimensions of visualspatial aptitude.

closed alphabets on our visualspatial aptitude in this study, our visual information system was found to demonstrate more acute responses to closed letters. Being in line with Chens experiments (1982) in which the participants could identify the lines within a shorter time frame while they were part of the closed whole and that the closed stimulus was topologically different from the unclosed stimulus, this study conrmed that the topological property of connectedness or closedness did exert its inuence on our visual perception through the brush writing of English alphabets. In short, owing to the fact that an individual preferred closed and connected images to unclosed and unconnected images and that the processing of English alphabets in handwriting was more concerned about its spatial structuring than phonetic analysis, which coincided with the visualspatial perception of the right hemisphere, the increase in the handling of closed English alphabets could therefore improve ones visualspatial perception. Linkage between writing and visualspatial perception Although reading and writing are mediated in part by the right hemisphere, the skills of reading and writing may be governed by different principles. For reading, it is the production of verbal responses with the account of visual symbols and words. As for writing or tracing, it is the production of visual symbols under the control of visual stimulus through the motor handing of the writing instrument. Although the writing process necessitated more attention for the visualspatial congurations of the letters and motor coordination of ngers and the arm for the written reproduction of the same letters (Kao et al., 1986), reading aloud the alphabets dealt primarily with the phonological reproduction in which the participants need not attend to the spatial arrangement of the letters. Because of the different linguistic requirements of writing and reading, it is logical to associate the calligraphic handwriting with visualspatial perception. This association is made even more pronounced in the case of brush handwriting in this study, due to the 3D nature of the associated motor control involved. With English reading merely as a controlled condition in this study, we found that the writing practice of tracing English calligraphy, not the oral practice, could enhance ones ability to differentiate the visual and spatial cues in the environment, as evidenced in the results of the visual space aptitudes measured.

Asia Pacic Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy Impacts of brush writing of English alphabets on general visualspatial aptitude

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The data extended the generalizability of Tos (1997) ndings that the writing of Chinese characters could improve ones visualspatial aptitude. With the signicant interaction between writing and closedness of English alphabets in this study, it was inferred that the language was not the key factor in determining increment of visualspatial ability. Rather, the geometric form used, the closedness and unclosedness, was more prominent in its impact. In both studies, the participants were ChineseEnglish bilinguals without previous calligraphic experience. The same writing tool (Chinese brush pen), same writing mode (tracing), and similar writing stimuli (matching stroke number) were adopted. Interestingly, for both studies, experimental results demonstrated that only the post-writing visual spatial ability test showed a signicant and stable increase in those participants who wrote the closed form of English calligraphic alphabets. Thus, the practice of English calligraphic writing could improve ones visualspatial aptitude as much as that of the Chinese calligraphic practice. Moreover, this study further conrmed the ndings of Lam (1994) that regardless of the linguistic features of Chinese or English, both Chinese calligraphy and English calligraphy were integrative processes of human perception, motion and cognition. In addition, the signicant improvement on visualspatial aptitude could be seen as a natural result of the brush writing of English alphabets and Chinese characters (1995). Thus, the closed form between the characters and letters, rather than the linguistic differences between Chinese and English, was the leading factor accounting for the improvement of the perceptual ability. Dimensions of visualspatial ability Consistent with our expectations, the participants in this study did make signicant improvement in the 2D visualspatial ability test as a result of brush writing of English alphabets. Writing calligraphy allowed the participants to observe attentively the particular size, shape and perspective of every stroke, which were 2D spatial cues. In other words, to trace over the alphabets, they attended to the 2D spatial cues intensively for 30 minutes. As a result, their ability to form 2D visualspatial representations mentally was signicantly strengthened. Conversely, because no 3D spatial cues, such as depth and shading cues, were identied in writing calligraphy, ones capacity for the mental presentation of 3D objects was facilitated. In addition, the majority of the participants mean difference between the pre- and post-2D tests increased to a much greater extent than that between the pre- and post-3D tests. Another explanation of this phenomenon was that in the visualspatial ability test used, the 3D subtest was more complicated than the 2D counterpart. Despite the fact that most of the objects in our visual world are 3D and we are therefore more familiar in perceiving 3D things, the images in the 3D subtest were beyond our normal perceptual experience and were more difcult to comprehend than in the 2D subtest. As a result, the participants merely had a stable advancement in their 2D visualspatial perception. Even though a signicant main effect was disclosed for the factor of perceptual dimensions, no stable relationship between this dimension of visualspatial ability and other variables including the mode of exposure (writing and reading) and closedness of English calligraphy could be located. Thus, we could only conclude that brush writing of

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closed English alphabets could facilitate and improve our general visualspatial perception. No specic advancement was noted in either the 2D or 3D aptitude. Neuro-linguistic implications of Chinese and English script processing Our early research discovered that Chinese character writing has the function of brain cognitive activation, which may be concerned with the functional plasticity of human cerebral cortex. We noted that during processing the visualspatial congurations of Chinese character forms at the writers cortical level, the writing activity would constitute the reproduction, restoration and processing of visual perception. This therefore could initiate the activation function and be advantageous to the operation of cognitive activity, further molding and enhancing the functions of related cortical substrates (Kao, 1999). This suggestion made some 15 years ago has been increasingly acknowledged by neuroscientists. Recent studies (Siok, Perfetti, Jin, & Tan, 2004; Tan, Spinks, Eden, Perfetti, & Siok, 2005) have suggested that, on the basis of studying dyslexia, Chinese language learning is facilitated by writing and that for alphabetical language it is, on the contrary, by phonological processing. Years of cognitive research with brush handwriting have given behavioural evidence to support the authors proposition. These outcomes have further broadened its applications from writing Chinese characters to that of alphabetic writing systems including English script (Kao, 2006, 2010). Present ndings shed light on the possible role of the visualspatial properties of alphabetic letters with varying fonts toward developing English brush writing as a complementary method for counselling, psychotherapy and cognitive rehabilitation. Kao and Xu (2010) investigated a direct relationship between geometric forms and neural electroencephalographic (EEG) changes through a spectral analysis and found a direct impact of visualspatial properties of Chinese characters on corresponding and distinguishing EEG wave variations. These ndings not only offer a new perspective toward examining the basis of characterbrain interface through brush writing in other linguistic forms or writing systems but also provide an opportunity of studying this relationship between functional neuroplasticity and the dynamic act of brush writing of alphabetic scripts. The outcomes of the present experiment serve to support, in terms of visualspatial aptitude, the generality of these authors ndings on neuro-cognitive effects of Chinese brush writing to those of English brush writing. Practical implications of ndings from English brush writing The possible effect of brush writing of English script stated before the experiment on visualspatial aptitude has been found consistent with that of Chinese calligraphy. This nding was accounted for by a common action grammar of handwriting between Chinese and English. This implies that the outcomes arising from brush handwriting using one script would be applicable to those of the other script and therefore suggests the plausible generality and sharing of handwriting theories and practical applications between the two writing systems. Most important is the broadening of user populations of Chinese who are Chinese calligraphy practitioners to those millions of Chinese who are learning and writing in Chinese Pinyin systems, which is the second ofcial language in China. This system of spelling makes use of the same alphabetic letters of the English writing system. Moreover, the present ndings suggest that, once an English- or alphabet-based system of Chinese

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calligraphy therapy is developed, it would enlarge the user population of native English language users in English-speaking societies, in addition to populations that use English as a second language, notably those from the Asia-Pacic region and China. This new method of English-based calligraphy training for health and therapeutic applications remains a distinct possibility. This would be a new, attractive and practical option to the elds of counseling, psychotherapy, clinical psychology and mental rehabilitation, especially for the Asia and Asia-Pacic regions. Calligraphy writing as a complementary approach to counselling and psychotherapy In the course of developing calligraphy therapy with the Chinese writing system, we have explored the possibility of integrating it with some mainstream theories and practices of counselling and psychotherapy. Our work along this line has examined the conventional gestalt theory, cognitive-behavioural therapy, dialectical therapy, biofeedback and muscle relaxation as well as the contemporary therapies such as music therapy, art therapy, meditation and mindfulness therapy. From these analyses, we have observed that calligraphy therapy could serve as an effective integrative system of treatment, which could be used in conjunction with any of the above approaches. This system of training involves a dynamic action or operational component of writing with a brush, which is an act anywhere involved not in the practice of orthodox psychotherapies. Existing practices of Chinese calligraphy therapy that combine drug treatment and conventional or contemporary therapies are available in clinical psychology clinics, hospitals, rehabilitation centres in China and Hong Kong for treating attention decit & hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), child and adult autism, emotional and mental health and cognitive rehabilitation. We are currently looking into integrating calligraphy therapy with the latest mainstream practice of the mindfulness doctrine, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the Relational Frame Therapy (Hayes, 2004, Hayes et al., 2011) for therapy and intervention. Another attempt along this line is our recent study that applied Chinese calligraphy therapy in conjunction with the listening of classical music played on the ancient Chinese instrument Guqing, a seven-string zither without bridges, for treating children with ADHD. Results showed that writing calligraphy while listening to the Guqin enhanced ones emotional relaxation (Lam, Kao, & Fung, In press). These initiatives aim at making calligraphy therapy an integrative treatment to be used in conjunction with current systems of psychological therapy and counselling. We expect a similar course of development for an English calligraphy system in the future. In summary, this study demonstrated that the process of brush handwriting and the closed form of calligraphic representation did coincide with changes that occurred in the experience of ones visualspatial perception. Writing closed English letters could advance humans general visualspatial aptitude, because the handwriting of English alphabets involved a right hemisphere superiority effect for such operations and our visual system is more sensitive to closed gures. That is, if individuals practice closed form of English brush calligraphy with the alphabets for an extended period of time, ones cognitive capability to detect visual spatial cues in the environment would be enhanced. This observation was experimentally conrmed and shared in the practice of Chinese brush calligraphy with Chinese characters, as much as there is the sharing of common movement patterns in the handwriting of Chinese and English (Wong & Kao, 1990). The ndings have implications toward the design of English writing alphabetic letters as well as the development of training tasks for cognitive health and rehabilitation.

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