lol!

> suggests handwriting may be irreplaceable when it comes to learning.

> For the typing condition, participants typed the same words on a keyboard using only their right index finger.

So they tested exactly nothing useful.

Give it up Mrs. Smith, the keyboard won.

In seriousness, I would always expect pressing a single button to require less brain power than drawing a complex line, even more so if the subjects have been in the digital world for the last 10 years.

Just from a pure mechanical motion finger movement of a single key being pressed at a time is far less than most of the full hand engagement wiring requires.

The study might have been better if the types used a full keyboard with both hands, but I suspect they always know the results would not be worthy to write home about.

But even they were. The task of transcribing is not all that engaging. Maybe I would have reserve brain power to do the task.

You will also have to convince me that what is measured, brain connectivity, is a metric we care about and has any real impact beyond being a fun trick.

>>For the typing condition, participants typed the same words on a keyboard using only their right index finger.

>The study might have been better if the types used a full keyboard with both hands

Agreed. This reminds me of solving Rubik's cubes, where solvers employ "fingertricks" like using index finger followed by middle finger to do a U2 (two turns of the "up" face) more quickly. Similarly people often minimize "regrips" and "cube rotations" (changing which side is facing you) to improve efficiency and get times down. What it also does is result in a more specific and consistent set of motions that I think are easier to remember and execute. People will also talk about algorithms being "in their hands" to differentiate between being able to spew out the notation vs actually doing it. I've found that for several algorithms I've memorized, if I don't do them at a natural (fast) speed and the usual positioning, I can forget the moves and lose track of what I'm doing. If I had to do every turn using my whole right hand, slowly, I suspect I would struggle a lot.