MovAlyzeR
Encyclopedia
MovAlyzeR is a software package for handwriting movement analysis
for research and professional applications. Handwriting movements are recorded using a digitizing tablet connected to a computer. MovAlyzeR is used in many different fields ranging from research in kinesiology
, psychology
, education
, geriatrics
, neurology
, psychiatry
, occupational therapy
, forensic document examination or questioned document examination
, computer science
, to educational demonstrations or student projects in these fields.
MovAlyzeRx has the same capability as MovAlyzeR except altering a test. It is designed for medical professionals (hence Rx). The user interface is as simple as possible. No left-clicks are required. The screen layout can be customized. To start testing, just type the patient or participant code.
ScriptAlyzeR handwriting analysis software, is a sub-package of MovAlyzeR excluding visual stimuli and sub-movement analysis.
GripAlyzeR is another flavor of MovAlyzeR for bi-manual force coordination using dedicated hardware: Two grip-force units connected via a magnet of programmable force.
These signal analysis algorithms were originally coded in Fortran on Digital's PDP11/34 laboratory computers with 54kB of memory. The algorithms use a complex Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to transform both the x and y signals into frequency domain. This allows low-pass filtering and differentiation with zero-phase and ripple free filtering of both x and y signals simultaneously (Teulings & Maarse, 1984).
The software was expanded and transcribed into plain C during the European ESPRIT projects: P419 "Image and Movement Understanding -- IMU" on Cursive-script recognition (1985–1988) and ESPRIT project P5204 "Pen And Paper Input Recognition Using Script – PAPYRUS (1991–1992).
The software was developed further at the Motor Control Laboratory of Arizona State University, USA (1993–1997) for research on Parkinson's disease and aging.
In 1997, NeuroScript was founded by Dr. Hans-Leo Teulings and Prof. George Stelmach (who has since retired) as a result of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business and Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant (R43 RR11683: Analysis system for fine motor control) to conduct a feasibility study into the feasibility of a general purpose handwriting movement analysis system for research.
In 1999, an SBIR Phase II grant was awarded to NeuroScript (R44 RR11683 Analysis system for fine motor control). The aim was to develop this system into a usable product. The result: the MovAlyzeR software was born - named, designed and implemented by Gregory M. Baker who joined NeuroScript in 1999.
In 2002, NeuroScript received an SBIR Phase II grant (R44 NS39212 Force measurement and analysis system). This enabled NeuroScript to generalize MovAlyzeR for bi-manual force coordination: GripAlyzeR. Instead of x and y movement components and axial pen pressure, GripAlyzeR used left and right grip forces and a lift force.
In 2002 NeuroScript received another Phase II grant (R44 NS38793: Optimization software for goal-directed movements). MovAlyzeR was expanded with interactive and animated audio-visual stimuli and sub-movement analysis.
In 2006, a Phase II grant was awarded (R44 MH073192: Movement Analysis to Monitor Medication). MovAlyzeR was tested in several major clinics where hundreds of patients were tested for movement side effects due to schizophrenia medication in addition to conventional clinical evaluation (SAEPS - Simpson-Angus Scale for Extrapyramidal Symptoms and parkinsonism, AIMS – Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale for tardive dyskinesia, BARS – Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale). Results demonstrated that MovAlyzeR measurements were more sensitive for dosage and medication type than the conventional clinical evaluations.
Handwriting movement analysis
Handwriting movement analysis is the study and analysis of the movements involved in handwriting and drawing. It forms an important part of graphonomics, which became established after the "International Workshop on Handwriting Movement Analysis" in 1982 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. It would...
for research and professional applications. Handwriting movements are recorded using a digitizing tablet connected to a computer. MovAlyzeR is used in many different fields ranging from research in kinesiology
Kinesiology
Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics is the scientific study of human movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms. Applications of kinesiology to human health include: biomechanics and orthopedics, rehabilitation, such as physical and occupational...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, geriatrics
Geriatrics
Geriatrics is a sub-specialty of internal medicine and family medicine that focuses on health care of elderly people. It aims to promote health by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities in older adults. There is no set age at which patients may be under the care of a geriatrician, or...
, neurology
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
, psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, occupational therapy
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to promote health by enabling people to perform meaningful and purposeful activities. Occupational therapists work with individuals who suffer from a mentally, physically, developmentally, and/or emotionally disabling condition by utilizing treatments...
, forensic document examination or questioned document examination
Questioned document examination
Questioned document examination is the forensic science discipline pertaining to documents that are in dispute in a court of law...
, computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, to educational demonstrations or student projects in these fields.
Features
MovAlyzeR can be customized for many different pen-movement tests, including goal-directed movements, drawing and handwriting up to a full page of text. It can also process scanned handwriting images for use in, e.g., forensic document examination. Immediately after each trial, consistency with the required pen-movement task is verified so that the user can decide to correct or redo a trial. MovAlyzeR can generate animated audiovisual stimuli which can be edited using its Stimulus Editor.MovAlyzeRx has the same capability as MovAlyzeR except altering a test. It is designed for medical professionals (hence Rx). The user interface is as simple as possible. No left-clicks are required. The screen layout can be customized. To start testing, just type the patient or participant code.
ScriptAlyzeR handwriting analysis software, is a sub-package of MovAlyzeR excluding visual stimuli and sub-movement analysis.
GripAlyzeR is another flavor of MovAlyzeR for bi-manual force coordination using dedicated hardware: Two grip-force units connected via a magnet of programmable force.
History
The original code of the software was the result of many years of research in handwriting movements. At the core of the software, the signal analysis algorithms that are used have been developed since 1976 when Dr. Hans-Leo Teulings conducted research into the development of handwriting motor control in children in comparison to children with developmental disorders at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Nijmegen (KUN), in The Netherlands. The department became part of the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information (NICI) and eventually the Centre for Cognition at the Radboud University Nijmegen (RU).These signal analysis algorithms were originally coded in Fortran on Digital's PDP11/34 laboratory computers with 54kB of memory. The algorithms use a complex Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to transform both the x and y signals into frequency domain. This allows low-pass filtering and differentiation with zero-phase and ripple free filtering of both x and y signals simultaneously (Teulings & Maarse, 1984).
The software was expanded and transcribed into plain C during the European ESPRIT projects: P419 "Image and Movement Understanding -- IMU" on Cursive-script recognition (1985–1988) and ESPRIT project P5204 "Pen And Paper Input Recognition Using Script – PAPYRUS (1991–1992).
The software was developed further at the Motor Control Laboratory of Arizona State University, USA (1993–1997) for research on Parkinson's disease and aging.
In 1997, NeuroScript was founded by Dr. Hans-Leo Teulings and Prof. George Stelmach (who has since retired) as a result of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business and Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant (R43 RR11683: Analysis system for fine motor control) to conduct a feasibility study into the feasibility of a general purpose handwriting movement analysis system for research.
In 1999, an SBIR Phase II grant was awarded to NeuroScript (R44 RR11683 Analysis system for fine motor control). The aim was to develop this system into a usable product. The result: the MovAlyzeR software was born - named, designed and implemented by Gregory M. Baker who joined NeuroScript in 1999.
In 2002, NeuroScript received an SBIR Phase II grant (R44 NS39212 Force measurement and analysis system). This enabled NeuroScript to generalize MovAlyzeR for bi-manual force coordination: GripAlyzeR. Instead of x and y movement components and axial pen pressure, GripAlyzeR used left and right grip forces and a lift force.
In 2002 NeuroScript received another Phase II grant (R44 NS38793: Optimization software for goal-directed movements). MovAlyzeR was expanded with interactive and animated audio-visual stimuli and sub-movement analysis.
In 2006, a Phase II grant was awarded (R44 MH073192: Movement Analysis to Monitor Medication). MovAlyzeR was tested in several major clinics where hundreds of patients were tested for movement side effects due to schizophrenia medication in addition to conventional clinical evaluation (SAEPS - Simpson-Angus Scale for Extrapyramidal Symptoms and parkinsonism, AIMS – Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale for tardive dyskinesia, BARS – Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale). Results demonstrated that MovAlyzeR measurements were more sensitive for dosage and medication type than the conventional clinical evaluations.
Versions
- MovAlyzeR 5 (Feb. 2009) Integrated with Matlab scripts. Uninterrupted recordings of 30 minutes. Word extraction in recordings with large numbers of words. MovAlyzeR Quick Reference. Attachments of documents to experiments. Enhanced tutorial. MovAlyzeRx patient-centered experiment and data analysis interface (no right-clicks needed). Customizable application look.
- MovAlyzeR 4 (Feb. 2007) Certified for MS Windows Vista. Pen tilt recording. Knowledge of Results after each trial. Summarization of data across trials or up and down strokes. Sequence of condition customization with randomization rules. Sampling rate and device resolution automatically detected per test and stored for each subject. Questionnaire for demographics and clinical data integrated in data summarization. Subject Codes without limitation. Automatic generation of up to 46000 unique subject IDs. Export Wizard for multiple-subject export and automatic website (FTP) uploading. Device setup wizard. Graphical Stimulus Editor. Correction and measurement of data discontinuities due to pen lifts. Importing and processing of handwriting images.
- MovAlyzeR 3 (Aug. 2004) Digitally signed by VeriSign using Microsoft Authenticode. Pay per use. Data sharing via LAN or internet URL. Client / Server database interaction. Multiple stroke segmentation methods.
- MovAlyzeR 2 (Sep. 2002) Certified for MS Windows XP. Event sounds. Stroke counting during recording. Real-time transformation of visual feedback during recording. Dynamic and animated stimuli. Example user UU1 with example experiments. Tooltips to all screen items. Digitizer accuracy and linearity test. Test signal simulation. Subject privacy protection.
- MovAlyzeR 1 (Aug. 2001) Data import wizard. Run experiment wizard. Charts with Standard Error, Mean of the within-subject means and SDs. Replay handwriting movement in real time.
Related file formats and extensions
| Ext. | Explanation |
|---|---|
| .hwr | .hwr files contain x and y tablet coordinates and axial pen pressure. Data can also include azimuth and altitude angles of the pen barrel relative to the digitizer tablet. |
| .mef | .mef files are MovAlyzeR Export Files with a complete experiment plus raw data and privacy-protected subject data using data encryption plus password protection. Only MovAlyzeR can open these files. |
Comparable software
CSWIN by Science and Motion, OASIS by KikoSoft, Pullman Spiral Acquisition and Analysis by Lafayette, NeuroSkill by Verifax, COMpet by University of Haifa, MedDraw by Universities of Kent and Rouen.See also
- GraphonomicsGraphonomicsGraphonomics is the interdisciplinary field directed towards the scientific analysis of the handwriting process and the handwritten product. Researchers in handwriting recognition, forensic handwriting examination, kinesiology, psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, paleography and...
science of handwriting and drawing movement production and processing. - Fine motor skillFine motor skillFine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands the term dexterity is commonly used....
dexterity and coordination of small muscle movements - Handwriting movement analysisHandwriting movement analysisHandwriting movement analysis is the study and analysis of the movements involved in handwriting and drawing. It forms an important part of graphonomics, which became established after the "International Workshop on Handwriting Movement Analysis" in 1982 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. It would...
reviewing digitizer tablets and software systems