Handwriting Movement Sonification: Why and How?

Sonifying handwriting, i.e., transforming some characteristics of handwriting movement into sounds, aims to improve handwriting perception, evaluation, and control. The educative or clinical interest is to make hidden variables of handwriting, which are not accessible through a visual inspection of the trace, perceptible and useful for novice or poor writers. From a theoretical point of view, handwriting sonification might be a powerful tool for assessing multisensory integration in motor control and learning. In a brief introduction, the main studies on handwriting sonification are reported and the interest of handwriting movement sonification is justified. Then, the project of sonification is described, with a specific focus on select variables of handwriting movement and associated sounds. The experimental validations of this sonification strategy are presented, followed by a conclusion and a few theoretical perspectives.