Percorrer por autor "Catronas, Dinis Miguel Duarte"
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- The influence of sensorimotor training in learning a novel script: a comparison between handwriting and visual learningPublication . Catronas, Dinis Miguel Duarte; Reis, Alexandra; Araújo, SusanaReading and writing are relatively recent cultural acquisitions in the history of human cognition, yet they have become essential to the functioning of today's modern society. It is well accepted that simple perceptive exposure to letters is not sufficient for the emergence of a highly specialized system in the brain to the ability to read and write an alphabet. Exactly what type of experiences are key for the emergence of the system devoted to letter processing is largely unknown. Recent research on this field has suggested that learning a new alphabet with motor integration (via handwriting) is more beneficial to visual letter recognition than other forms of practice such as mere visual exposure to the characters. In the present study we wanted to explore whether and how visual-motor integration could be beneficial in learning a new alphabet compared to purely visual learning. For this aim, adult participants were exposed to a new alphabet, an artificial script, composed of 12 pseudoletters, each of them being associated with a corresponding syllabic sound. Thirty-six adults were trained in a novel set of letters, through either “visual-only” (mere visual exposure – Visual-Only Group) or “visual-to-motor” (visual exposure plus handwriting – Visual-Motor Group) practice over a three-days Learning Phase. Participants were asked to learn the new alphabet. Behavioral and eye-tracking tasks were created to evaluate the learning curve of the two experimental groups, the ability to recognize and discriminate the new letters after training, and their reading ability. Significant differences between groups were found across Learning Phases; the Visual-Motor Group had higher Dwell Times. First Fixation Duration and Fixation Count on the last Learning Phase compared to the first Learning Phase than the Visual-Only group when correct responses were considered. These results seem to suggest that the group with the combined training spends more time on the correct response. On the other hand, the Visual-Motor Group spent less time and had lower fixation count on distractors compared to the Visual-Only Group, suggesting that the group with the combined training (visual and motor training) is sensitive to interference of an irrelevant target.