An Experimental Study of Writing Movements. 
249 
the fingers do the work of constructing the letters, and the arm acts 
in the intervals so as to carry the hand forward. It is only neces¬ 
sary to note that in this case the constructive finger movements and 
the forward arm movements have a larger part to perform. 
A third type of record is reproduced in figure 4. This record 
shows the very pronounced preponderance of arm movements. The 
movements recorded between 1 and 6 and 7 and 11 differ little in 
slope from the recognized arm record between 6 and 7. The hand 
reproduces the letters in much more detail than in the other cases 
because it is carried along in the process of writing by a general 
arm movement. To be sure, the finer details of the letters are here, 
as before, formed by the fingers, but there is more of the general 
work done by the hand and arm muscles. This record is also in 
Fig. 4. 
> *3 w r 6 
f 7 ID // 
the character of its writing, obviously holder and more angular than 
the earlier records. It is typical of a whole group of cases in which 
the movement is coarse and more general and in which less attention 
is given by the writer to questions of form. 
There are certain forms of writing in which the individual has 
trained himself to make no use whatever of the fingers. It is not 
our purpose in this paper to deal with such unusual and extreme 
forms of writing movement. Enough to say that they require long 
periods of special practice. When the ordinary individual is asked 
to write without moving the fingers, the records generally make it 
very clear that some finger movement has crept in in spite of the effort 
to exclude it. 
The general conclusion from the comparison of a large number 
of records, of which the three reproduced represent the chief types,