Attention to the hands disrupts skilled typewriting: The role of vision in producing the disruption

Abstract

Drawing typists' attention to their hands by asking them to type only letters assigned to the left or the right hand disrupts their performance, slowing the rate of typing and increasing errors. In this article we test the hypothesis that slowing occurs because typists watch their hands to determine which hand types which letter. Skilled typists were cued to type letters of one hand or of both hands while they could view their hands on the keyboard and while their vision was blocked by a box placed over the keyboard. Typing was slower when letters of one hand were typed than when letters of both hands were typed, and the slowing was greater when the hands were covered than when they were not. This supports the hypothesis that slowing occurs because typists watch their hands. However, typists were able to type letters of one hand when the keyboard was covered, so typists must have monitored kinesthetic information as well.

Monitoring-induced disruption in skilled typewriting.

“…Logan and Crump (2009) speculated that the outer loop uses visual information about hand and finger movements (i.e., watches the hands) to determine whether a keystroke needs to be inhibited. Tapp and Logan (2011) tested this hypothesis by limiting access to visual information from the hands and keyboard by covering typists' hands while they completed a monitor-to-inhibit task. Consistent with the hypothesis, Tapp and Logan found increased disruption when the hands were covered.…”

“…However, common lore and recent findings suggest that it is disruptive to direct attention to the details of a skilled behavior (Beilock, Carr, MacMahon, & Starkes, 2002;Beilock & Carr, 2001;Gray, 2004;Logan & Crump, 2009;Tapp & Logan, 2011). William James (1890) alluded to this paradox over a century ago when he noted that: "Our lower centers know the order of movements .…”

“…The outer loop does not have direct access to information pro-cessed by the inner loop, so the outer loop must make the information explicit by monitoring the inner loop's output-by "watching" the hands and fingers move. Tapp and Logan (2011) found that the outer loop monitors the inner loop's output by looking at the hands and fingers as they strike the keyboard, but it can also monitor kinesthetic information. Because skilled keystrokes are rapidly executed, typing rate needs to be slowed down to allow enough time for the outer loop to explicitly register the keystrokes (Keele & Posner, 1968;Klemmer, 1971).…”

“…Alternatively, the monitor-to-inhibit task (Logan & Crump, 2009;Tapp & Logan, 2011) could be disruptive because it induces dual-task costs. The dual-task hypothesis suggests that when monitoring-induced disruption occurs, attention must be divided between performing a skill and attending to how the skill is executed.…”

“…On the one hand, it facilitates performance by reducing the outer loop's processing load. On the other hand, it could impede performance when information processed by the inner loop needs to be made explicit (Logan & Crump, 2009;Tapp & Logan, 2011). For example, Logan and Crump (2009) developed a monitor-toinhibit task in which skilled typists had to type only the letters of target words that are normally typed with one hand (e.g., the right) but not the other (e.g., the left).…”