書寫重要嗎？

許多教育界人士主張教導孩子端正書寫，不過只限於幼稚園與小一。此後重點很快就轉移到熟練鍵盤打字。

But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is too soon to declare handwriting a relic . New evidence suggests the links between handwriting and educational development run deep.

然而心理學家與神經科學家表示，宣告書寫已成歷史時候還沒到。新證據顯示書寫與教育發展關係極深。

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they are better able to generate ideas and retain information.

孩子初學手寫時，不僅學會認字更快，也更能產生想法並保留訊息。

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the College de France in Paris. “And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize .”

法蘭西公學院心理學家迪哈尼說：「書寫時一個獨特的神經回路會自動開啟。這回路似乎以我們未察覺的獨特方式幫助我們。」

A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, supports that view. Children who didn’t know how to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it . The children were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again.

2012年由印第安納大學心理學家卡琳•詹姆士領銜所做研究佐證這項見解。研究人員向不識字的孩子出示上有一個字母或形狀的索引卡片，要他們複製。接著，把這些孩子置於大腦掃描機下，再向他們出示同樣的圖像。

The researchers found the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write .

研究人員發現，最初的複製過程非常重要。孩子們徒手畫出一個字母時，與成人書寫時啟動的相同大腦部位活動會明顯增加。如果孩子打字或摹寫，啟動程度弱得多。

The activation was significantly weaker in children who typed or traced the letter . Dr. James attributes the differences to the messiness inherent in free-form handwriting: We are likely to produce a result that is highly variable.

詹姆士認為，這些差異源於自由形式書寫原已具備的雜亂特性。我們可能產生極為多變的結果。

“When a kid produces a messy letter,” Dr. James said, “that might help him learn it.” Being able to decipher each messy letter may be more helpful than seeing the same result . The effect goes beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product. When the children wrote by hand, they not only produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas. The children with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas linked with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.

詹姆士說：「孩子寫出一個雜亂的字母，可能有助於他學習這個字母。」能夠解讀每一個雜亂的字母可能比只是看相同的結果更有幫助。

效果不只限於辨認字母。華盛頓大學心理學家維吉妮亞•柏寧格對二到五年級學童進行的研究顯示，印刷字體、草寫與在鍵盤上打字各與不同的大腦模式有關，也各有不同的終端產品。孩子以手書寫時，不但會比在鍵盤上更快速的產生更多字彙，還會表達更多想法。孩子書寫能力較強，與工作記憶有關的大腦部位神經啟動程度較強，閱讀與書寫網絡的整體啟動程度也會提高。

It now appears that there may even be a difference between printing and cursive writing . In dysgraphia, a condition where the ability to write is impaired, something unusual happens sometimes: cursive writing remains relatively unimpaired in some people , while in others, printing remains unimpaired. In alexia, or impaired reading ability, some individuals who are unable to process print can still read cursive, and vice versa — suggesting the two writing modes engage separate brain networks, and therefore more cognitive resources. Dr. Berninger even suggests cursive writing may train self-control ability in a way that other modes of writing do not, and some researchers argue that it may even be a path to treating dyslexia.

最新研究顯示，甚至印刷字體與草體書寫之間可能也有差異。以書寫困難症而言，一些不尋常的現象有時候會出現：有些人草體書寫能力比較不受影響，有些人則印刷體書寫能力比較不受影響。

以閱讀障礙症來說，部分無法處理印刷字體的人仍然可以閱讀草寫體。反之亦然。這意味，這二種書寫形式牽涉不同的大腦網絡與更多的認知資源。

柏寧格甚至認為，草體書寫能夠以其他書寫形式做不到的方式訓練自我控制能力。有些研究人員則認為，它甚至可能是治療閱讀困難症的一種方法。

The benefits of writing by hand go beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be efficient , but it may diminish the ability to process new information. While not every expert is convinced the long-term benefits of handwriting are that significant , Paul Bloom, a Yale University psychologist , says the new research is thought-provoking. “With handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what’s important,” he said. After pausing to consider, he added, Maybe it helps you think better.”

手寫的好處會延續到成年。對成人而言，打字可能比較有效率，卻可能傷害處理新訊息的能力。

並不是每位專家都認為手寫的好處有那麼大，不過耶魯大學心理學家布倫姆表示，這種新研究引人深思。

他說：「書寫時，把字寫下來這個動作會迫使你把注意力集中在重點。」他又說，停下來思考之後，「或許能讓你思考得更周密」。

在美國北卡羅來納州杜倫市的杜克大學醫學中心，骨外科醫師普拉克洗手進入手術室之前，戴上一副時髦的黑眼鏡──內建攝影機及螢幕的穿戴式電腦「谷歌眼鏡」。

He gave the Internet-connected glasses a voice command to start recording and turned to the motorcycle crash victim on the operating table. He chiseled through bone, repaired a broken metatarsal and drilled a metal plate into the patient’s foot. Dr. Parekh has been using Glass since last year, when Google began selling test versions of its device to thousands of handpicked “explorers” for $1,500. He now uses it to record and archive all of his surgeries at Duke, and soon he will use it to stream live feeds of his operations to hospitals in India as a way to train and educate orthopedic surgeons there.

他給這副連上網路的眼鏡下了聲控指令，讓它開始錄影，然後轉向手術檯上的機車車禍傷患。他鑿穿骨頭，修補一塊碎裂的蹠骨，並把金屬板放進他腳內。

谷歌去年以每副1500美元把這款眼鏡的測試版賣給精心挑選的數千名「探索者」，普拉克醫師也一路用到現在。目前他在杜克完成的所有手術都以谷歌眼鏡記錄及存檔，不久後還將用它把手術過程以現場串流方式傳給印度一些醫院，訓練並教育當地的骨外科醫師。

“In India, foot and ankle surgery is about 40 years behind where we are in the U.S.,” he said. “So to be able to use Glass to broadcast this and have orthopedic surgeons around the world watch and learn from expert surgeons in the U.S. would be tremendous.” A growing number of surgeons are using Google Glass to stream their operations online, float medical images in their field of view, and hold video consultations .

他說：「印度足與踝手術大約落後我們美國40年，因此，能夠以谷歌眼鏡轉播手術，讓全球骨外科醫師觀摩美國專科醫師動手術並從中學習，是件了不起的事。」

現在愈來愈多外科醫師使用谷歌眼鏡，把他們的手術經過串流上網、提出他們視野下的醫學影像，並舉行影音會診。

Software developers, too, have created programs that transform the Glass projector into a medical dashboard that displays patient vital signs .

軟體開發商也推出一些程式，把谷歌眼鏡投影器變成病患生命徵象的顯示板。

“I’m sure we’re going to use this in medicine,” said Dr. Oliver J. Muensterer, a pediatric surgeon who recently published the first peer-reviewed study on the use of Glass in clinical medicine. “Not the current version, but a version in the future that is specially made for health care with all the privacy, hardware and software issues worked out.” For his study, published in The International Journal of Surgery, Dr. Muensterer wore the device daily for four weeks at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in New York. He found that filming rapidly drains the battery and that the camera — which is mounted straight ahead — does not point directly at what he is looking at when he is hunched over a patient with his eyes tilted downward.

兒童外科醫師曼斯特爾最近針對谷歌眼鏡在臨床醫學上的使用，發表了第一篇同儕審查的研究報告，他說：「我確信我們醫界會使用谷歌眼鏡。不是目前這種版本，而是專為醫療設計，妥善解決了所有隱私及軟硬體問題的未來版。」

曼斯特爾為了這篇發表在《國際外科學雜誌》上的研究報告，在紐約州威徹斯特醫學中心的瑪麗亞法拉利兒童醫院，一連四周每天戴用谷歌眼鏡。他發現，錄影功能會迅速耗盡電池電力，而在他彎下腰來垂視病患時，裝在眼鏡正前方的鏡頭並未瞄準他觀看的東西。

He also had to keep the device disconnected from the Internet most of the time to prevent patient data and images from being automatically uploaded to the cloud. “Once it’s on the cloud, you don’t know who has access to it,” Dr. Muensterer said.

曼斯特爾還必須讓谷歌眼鏡泰半時間不與網路聯結，以免病患資料及畫面自動上傳到雲端。他說：「一旦上了雲端，你不知道誰能接觸到那些資料。」

Also, the Glass projector can be used to see email and surf the web, potentially allowing doctors to take multitasking to dangerous new levels, said Dr. Peter J. Papadakos at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

此外，紐約羅徹斯特大學醫學中心的帕帕達科斯醫師說，谷歌眼鏡的投影器可以用來看電郵及瀏覽網路，這可能讓醫師把多工型態發展到前所未見的危險程度。

Similar technology has not always had the smoothest results. Studies have found, for example, that navigational displays can help surgeons find tumors, but they can also induce a form of tunnel vision, or perceptual blindness, that makes them more likely to miss unrelated lesions or problems in surrounding tissue. But Dr. Pierre Theodore, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, calls wearable computers “a game changer.”

類似科技的結果，並非總能盡如人意。例如，多項研究發現，導航螢幕可協助醫師找到腫瘤，但也會導致隧道視野或視而不見情況，使得醫師更可能錯失周邊組織中不相關的病變或問題。

但舊金山加州大學心肺外科醫師西奧多說，這種可穿戴電腦是「革命性產品」。

“In surgery, Google Glass is incredibly illuminating,” said Dr. Theodore, who uses Glass to float X-rays and CT scans in his field of view at the operating table. “It helps you pinpoint what you’re looking for, so you don’t have to shift your attention away from the operation to look at a monitor somewhere else.”

西奧多醫師動手術時使用谷歌眼鏡讓Ｘ光及電腦斷層掃描影像出現在視野內，他說：「在手術上，谷歌眼鏡極具啟發性，它協助你鎖定要找的東西，讓你不必從手術中轉移注意力，看別處的監視器。」

At Indiana University Health in Indianapolis, Dr. Paul P. Szotek, a trauma surgeon, is developing an app for Glass for use by paramedics. The app streams a live feed from the glasses to the closest emergency rooms, so that doctors can see accident victims at the scene and give paramedics potentially lifesaving instructions .

在印第安納波里斯市的印第安納大學健康中心，創傷外科醫師鄒泰克正在研發一款供醫務人員使用的谷歌眼鏡應用程式。該程式可把眼鏡上的現場影音串流到距離最近的急診室，讓醫師看到意外現場的傷者，對醫務人員下達可能救命的指示。

In January, at a conference in Jaipur, India, Dr. Parekh performed surgery and used Glass to stream the procedure on his personal website. That day, the site drew in so many visitors from India and elsewhere that it crashed. “I’ve been even more excited about Google Glass since then,” he said.

今年一月，在印度齋浦爾的一場研討會上，普拉克醫師為病患動刀並以谷歌眼鏡把過程串流到他的個人網站。該網站當天從印度國內久吸了許多人造訪，人數多到網站當機。

他說：「從那以後，谷歌眼鏡就更讓我興奮了。」