Comments on: Fingers detect typos even when conscious brain doesn’t

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:10:09 +0000

Larkspurlazuli: Thanks for that. Will follow the link later when I have time.
Have visited your blog though – nice!
Interesting photos of Derren’s old flat in Bristol…

By: Ximena de la Serna

Ximena de la Serna — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:59:05 +0000

This is absolutely true and I think most of us suspected it. Not only pianists are a clear example (and my piano teacher always tells me when I perform badly: stop thinking!) But also, I’ve noticed that when I have to type a very long or foreign word, the faster I type it, the more accurate; and when I do it slowly the letters stick together and mess with my brain

By: Larkspurlazuli

Larkspurlazuli — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:08:05 +0000

Rob – yes, I’ve heard it called muscle memory too. The basal ganglia is the part of the brain responsible for producing automatic learned movements.

The basal ganglia lie at the center of your brain, underneath the cortex. As a behavior becomes repeated over and over, they take over execution of the behavior from other more conscious parts of the brain. The basal ganglia are very well connected to the motor cortex and the part of your brain that plans movement, so you’re right, they work together.

http://www.alinenewton.com/images/basalganglia-2.jpg

Interesting article!

By: Psycodelik

Psycodelik — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:14:55 +0000

I play the guitar, and I’ve noticed the same phenomenon that Rob mentions in the above comment – I’ll learn a melody by playing it repetitively, and I’ve noticed that if I start thinking about the melody, consciously thinking about the frets I have to play, I make mistakes!

By: Bibi

Bibi — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:00:40 +0000

I am a touch typist and find that if I actually look at the keyboard I start messing up or slowing down. I just let my fingers do their thing…. I agree with the comment that this can’t be a new find, surely!!

By: Lady Claire

Lady Claire — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:38:41 +0000

As someone who touch-types for a living, I’ve been trained to look at the work I’m keying, not the screen or the keys. If I suddenly start looking & thinking about what I’m doing I go wrong. So I hardly ever look at my keyboard at all.
I wouldn’t say I go correcting things on autopilot cos our system is such that if I’m checking someone else’s work it makes a noise if what we both key doesn’t match up. The strange thing is that both typists have been known to make the same error…

I also played the piano when I was younger for a few years. I can read music etc, but found that once I knew which keys were needed to play a piece & I didn’t need to refer to the music so much, then I was able to just let the music flow without thinking. Again, once I thought about things, I lost it.

LC x

By: mike

mike — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:48:41 +0000

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By: Radu C

Radu C — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:51:47 +0000

As I type a lot, I managed the skill of typing while talking to someone and looking into their eyes, no matter where they are in a 360 degree radius, without looking at the screen, and generally I can tell when I make a mistake, because my hands expect to find a -full- key surface when they land, and at a certain relative distance from the previous key. If an edge is detected instead, I know I may have made an error, but only if my finger actually was sent to the right key, ’cause sometimes I type a totally wrong key and don’t notice, like “a” instead of “e” where an e is present (like the word “error” turned to “arror” while typing this comment). What’s more, I seem to be making these mistakes since I moved to the UK from Romania. I used to type better English before that

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:39:40 +0000

As an improving pianist, I can ‘feel’ my hands ‘learning’ the music. When I think about it too much, I make mistakes. My hands know much better than me!
It is often referred to as muscle memory, isn’t it? I often wonder if the skill is in the temporal lobe, motor cortex, the brainstem, the nerves of the arm and hand or in a combo of all four. Or is my neurology at fault?

By: nik sargent

nik sargent — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:04:29 +0000

As someone who has always marvelled at humans’ ability to play the piano (and plays a little myself), this doesn’t strike me as a particularly new revelation – I would have thought this was fairly obvious!