Typewriting Rate as a Function of Reaction Time

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the relationship between reaction time and typewriting rate. Subjects were 24 typists ranging in age from 19 to 39 yr. Reaction times (.001 sec) to a light were recorded for each finger and to each alphabetic character and three punctuation marks. Analysis of variance yielded significant differences in reaction time among subjects and fingers. Correlation between typewriting rate and average reaction time to the alphabetic characters and three punctuation marks was --.75. Correlation between typewriting rate and the difference between the reaction time of the hands was --.42. Factors influencing typewriting rate may include reaction time of the fingers, difference between the reaction time of the hands, and reaction time to individual keys on the typewriter. Implications exist for instructional methodology and further research.

Simon-Type Effects: Chronometric Evidence for Keypress Schemata in Typewriting.

“…Second, I calculated the correlation between the Simon effect and mean RT across all conditions of the experiments. Mean RT reflects typing skill (Hayes, Wilson, & Schafer, 1977). The correlations between mean RT and speed on the typing test were significant in each experiment (for Experiments 1 and 2, r s = −.720 and −.553 and F s[1, 15] = 16.10 and 6.60, respectively [both p s <.05]; for Experiment 3, r s = −.628, −.604, and −.646, and F s[1, 15] = 9.78, 8.63, and 10.77, for LEFT-right, LEght-riFT, and Light-rEFT words, respectively [all p s <.01]).…”

“…Mean RT reflects typing skill (Hayes, Wilson, & Schafer, 1977 . In Experiment 1, the correlation between the Simon effect and mean RT was positive (r ϭ .210) and nonsignificant, F(1, 15) Ͻ 1.…”

Effects of age and skill in typing.

“…18 to +.44, in tapping tasks (e.g., Borkan & Norris, 1980;Dirken, 1972;Furukawa et al, 1975;Jalavisto, 1965); and correlations of .42 to .53, in other visual-manual transcription tasks such as the digit-symbol substitution task (see Salthouse, 1982b, for a review). Several studies have reported that one or more of these measures is related to speed of typing (e.g., Ackerson, 1926;Book, 1924;Cleaver & O'Connor, 1982;Flanagan & Fivars, 1964;Flanagan, Fivars, & Tuska, 1959;Hayes, 1978;Hayes, Wilson, & Schafer, 1977;Leonard & Carpenter, 1964;Muscio & Sowton, 1923;Tuttle, 1923), although there are some contradictory results (e.g., Hansen, 1922). The RT analogy, therefore, still seems relevant, even though the quantitative estimates should not be taken too seriously.…”

Age-related differences in the motoric aspects of transcription typing skill.

“…The simplified typing task used in Experiment 1 was letter reaction time, which measured latency to type a single letter. Previous studies using this task found that performance is related to typing skill, with more skilled typists having faster reaction times (Hayes, 1978;Hayes, Wilson, & Schafer, 1977). The task used in Experiment 2 was digraph typing, a digraph referring to two successive keystrokes.…”