Reconsideration of the Effects of Handwriting: Comparing Cognitive Load of Handwriting and Typing

Handwriting is preferred when people take notes or annotate during listening to lectures or reading documents. This paper proves the effects of handwriting experimentally. Two experiments using a dual task method revealed that the cognitive load of handwriting was smaller than that of typing and typing interfered with memorization more than handwriting. Moreover, this tendency was also observed for people who can type fast with touch typing. This indicates that handwriting has a strong advantage in keeping information without interfering with other cognitive activities regardless of people's typing skill.