Basic study on extraction of skilled element on the basis of eye-hand coordination and writing pressure in calligraphy

The purpose of this study was to construct basics for clarifying the process of skill acquisition from the viewpoint of cognitive science. The information obtained from the eye-gaze is essential for the determination of physical movements in any work. The calligraphy was selected and analyzed as an example of eye-hand coordination. Eye-gaze position, location of brush tip and writing pressure of expert and novice participants were measured using the system which consist of an eye mark recorder, a three-dimensional position-orientation measurement device and writing pressure measurement device. An attempt was made to extract the skilled element by examining whether the relationship between arbitrary combinations of three measures (line of eye-gaze, brush tip stroke and writing pressure) was different between the novice and the skilled experts. Consequently, a significant difference between two skill groups was found in the relationship between brush stroke and line of eye gaze, and between brush stroke and writing pressure. Different from novices, experts are found to be outstanding in the following three perspectives: (1) eye movement for understanding space as a whole, (2) eye movement preceding to brush tip, and (3) modulated brush stroke. Thus, the three features above were demonstrated to be essential to skilled element.