title: Pushing typists back on the learning curve: contributions of multiple linguistic units in the acquisition of typing skill.
abstract: The present study investigated the way people acquire and control skilled performance in the context of typewriting. Typing skill was degraded by changing the location of a key (target key) while retaining the locations of other keys to disable an association between the letter and the key. We conducted 4 experiments: Experiment 1 demonstrated that disabling a letter-key association affected not only the execution of the target keystroke but also the planning of other keystrokes for words involving the target key. In Experiments 2-4, typists practiced with a new target location and then transferred to a condition in which they typed the practiced words with the original key location (Experiment 2) or typed new words with the practiced key location (Experiments 3 and 4). Experiment 2 showed that the newly acquired letter-key association interfered with the execution of the original keystroke but not planning. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that acquisition of the new letter-key association depended on multiple levels of linguistic units. Experiment 4 demonstrated that acquisition of the new association depended on sequences both before and after the target keystroke. We discuss implications of the results for 2 prominent approaches to modeling sequential behavior: hierarchical control and recurrent network models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Motonori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University.
authors.forename: Gordon D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Logan
mesh_terms: D001245:Association Learning; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D059032:Learning Curve; D008037:Linguistics; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009048:Motor Skills; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D014163:Transfer, Psychology