How to type (Was how to write a letter ?)

CSGnet Archive CSG1999
1

[From Fred Nickols (990105.1805)]--

>Rick Marken (990103.1550)

>>Bill Powers (990103.1215 MST)
>> You need feedback to tell you where you are so you can know when
>> to do the next element.
>>>Bruce Gregory (990103.1640 EDT)--
>>> Not really. You can type blindfolded. You know perfectly well
>>> where you are in the sequence of letters you intend to produce.

Rick...

>Are you presenting this as evidence that you don't need feedback
>about the state of a sequence in order to be able to control it?
>If so, this would be evidence that at least one kind of behavior is
>_not_ the control of perception. Have you thought about how well
>you could control the sequence of letters (blindfolded) on one
>one of those keyboards that switches from Qwerty to Dvorak --
>with someone randomly throwing the switch from one key mapping
>to the other while you type?

What's missing for me in the exchange above is what I was taught
in typing class some 45 years ago, namely, to not look at what I
was typing or at the keyboard. "Touch typing" it was called back
then. The "feedback"--for want of a better word--is kinaesthetic
in nature, not visual. The "perceptions" are tensions in what my
Skinnerian training taught me were "striated muscles and joints."
So, typing blindfolded doesn't seem to me to disrupt feedback at
all--except for someone who hasn't learned how to do it without
looking at what is being typed or at the keyboard.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
Distance Consulting
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@worldnet.att.net
(609) 490-0095

2

[Martin Taylor 990106 1:27]

Fred Nickols (990105. 1805)

I haven't been following this thread, but there is some evidence.
Unfortunately I don't have the reference handy, but if there is interest
I might be able to find it.

What's missing for me in the exchange above is what I was taught
in typing class some 45 years ago, namely, to not look at what I
was typing or at the keyboard. "Touch typing" it was called back
then. The "feedback"--for want of a better word--is kinaesthetic
in nature, not visual. The "perceptions" are tensions in what my
Skinnerian training taught me were "striated muscles and joints."
So, typing blindfolded doesn't seem to me to disrupt feedback at
all--except for someone who hasn't learned how to do it without
looking at what is being typed or at the keyboard.

There was a study of typists in which the feedback was disrupted by
delaying it a few tens of milliseconds. That badly disrupted the typing
of novices, but skilled typists were unaffected once they learned not
to look at the visual result of the typing. "Typing blindfold" may
disrupt visual feedback, but it doesn't disrupt typing performance.

Maybe this is irrelevant to the thread. If so, I apologise for the
intervention.

Martin