Performance of Skilled Typists as a Function of Pacing,Response Complexity and Urgency in Numerical Hear-and-type Tasks

Abstract

Performance of skilled typists in numerical hear-and-type tasks, i.e. making immediate keypresses in response to verbally presented numbers, has practical and theoretical importance because it help understand perceptual-motor skills and error mechanisms. Effects of speech rates (500ms vs. 1000ms interval), urgency (elicited by monetary rewards) and finger strategies (single vs. multi-finger typing) on typing speed and accuracy were investigated. Fast speech rate and multi-finger typing degraded both typing speed and accuracy, while urgency improved typing speed at the expense of decreasing accuracy. Errors were almost doubled under urgent condition while urgency effect on speed was similar to that of speech rate. The results implied that common beliefs of fast speech and multi-finger typing being incentive to typing performance might not be true, and internalized urgency could play a more important role in error-making than external task demands.