Cognitive Aspects of Skilled TypewritingW. E. Cooper This volume marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of William Book's 1908 The Psychology of Skill, in which typewriting received its first large-scale treatment from a psychological standpoint. As Book realized early on, this form of human behavior is particularly well suited to testing psychological theories of complex motor skill and its acquisition, present ing as it does a task that richly engages cognitive and motor components of programming, yet involves a form of response output that can be readily quantified. Now that typewriting is practiced so widely in workday circumstances, studying this activity offers the additional prospect of practical applicability. Until recently, relatively few studies had been conducted on the psychology of typewriting. One might speculate that this dearth of interest stemmed in part from the fact that researchers themselves rarely undertook the activity, delegating it instead to the secretarial pool. Psychological research on piano playing has produced a literature more sizable than the one on typewriting, yet the latter activity has probably been practiced for many more total human hours in this century. But contemporary developments in word processing technology have moved the typewriter into the researcher's office, and in recent years interest in accompanying psychological issues has grown. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Psychology of Typewriting | 8 |
Feedback Systems | 14 |
Copyright | |
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2H digraphs analysis average b₁ b₂ buffer cerebral hemisphere character position characterization code dictionary cognitive components context copying span cursor delay delete Dvorak Dvorak simplified keyboard effect example execution experiment experimental eye-hand span feedback Figure finger motions finger movements frequency function function words hand alternation hand and finger hemisphere homophone increase initial latency input interaction interkey interkeystroke interval interresponse time distributions interstroke intervals involved Japanese writing system kana kana-to-kanzi conversion kantele kanzi code katakanas keyboard keystrokes learner learning letter manuscript method mirror-image msec nonfluent responses normal novice pattern performance possible preview pseudowords Psychology qwerty Rainputto Rumelhart schema sentences Shaffer skilled typing skilled typists space stimuli stopping span strings stroke struck subjects suggests Table task tion touch typing transposition two-stroke codes typewriter Typewriting behavior typing speed units word length word processors Yamada