Pressure on Point and Barrel of a Writing Instrument
Virgil E. Herrick, Wayne Otto · The Journal of Experimental Education · 1961
THE PRESENT study is a further extension of I investigations of pressure phenomena in hand writing conducted by members of a Committee for Research in Basic Skills at the University of Wis consin. Two previous investigations reported by Harris and Rarick (1, 2) were limited to the study of pressure applied to the point ofawriting in strument. The studies were concerned w ith the methodology of examining point pressure phenom ena and the relationship between point pressure and legibility in handwriting. The previous Wisconsin investiga tors were limited to the study of pressure on point because, as Harris and Rarick (1) have pointed out, no sat isfactory method of mesuring pressure exerted upon the barrel of a writing instrument had been devised. The problem of adequately measuring pressure exerted upon the point of a writing in strument was, however, solved by recording pressure through the use ofaplaten and strain guages coupled with a vacuum tube amplifier and a recording oscilliograph. It appeared that a comparable technique might be employed in mea suring pressure on barrel if the appropriate in strumentation were available. Consequently, a grip pressure transducer pen was developed by the Parker Pen Company for experimental purposes. The development o f the transducer pen made possible 1) the study of pressure applied to the barrel as well as to the point of a writing instrument and 2) the examina tion of possible interrelationships between point and barrel pressure. The primary purpose of this study w a s to ex amine barrel and point pressure phenomena in an attempt to determine what relationships and pres sure patterns appear to exist. Specifically, answers to three questions were sought. 1) What is the relationship between pres sure applied to the point and pressure applied to