Righting errors in writing errors: The Wing and Baddeley (1980) spelling error corpus revisited

Abstract

We present a new analysis of our previously published corpus of handwriting errors (slips) using the proportional allocation algorithm of Machtynger and Shallice (2009). As previously, the proportion of slips is greater in the middle of the word than at the ends, however, in contrast to before, the proportion is greater at the end than at the beginning of the word. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of memory effects in a graphemic output buffer.

Keywords:

• Handwriting
• Spelling
• Error distribution
• Serial position curve
• Normalized word length

We acknowledge the data entry assistance of Jacquie Dale.