Typing Faster Through Apprehension - K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

This quote was added by user401321
When you type faster than usual, it forces you to start looking ahead at the words that are coming up so you can figure out where to place your fingers in anticipation. So, if you see that the next four letters will all be typed with fingers on your left hand, you can move the correct finger on your right hand into place for the fifth letter ahead. Tests on the best typists have shown that their speeds are closely related to how far ahead they look at upcoming letters while they type.

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localbisexual 1 year, 4 months ago
I hate this quote because whenever I come across it i always get hyper aware of how my fingers are being placed. the comment below me says that it doesn't translate into physical movement but they're wrong: it's about instinct. i don't actively think about where to place my fingers anymore, but for example, typing the world "place" my fingers were already prepped for the "c" as i was typing out the "p". I become aware of this when I type this quote and it always messes with me
hunterz1200 3 years, 1 month ago
I'm unsure this strategy of "placing fingers in anticipation" is how typing works. The homerow-based typing technique typically keeps your fingers fairly well spaced along the entire keyboard. As such, the distance to each key is, for the most part, even. The idea here is that you don't have to place your fingers for anticipation, as they're already fairly close to the next key.

I'm also unsure how that might work. If I were to type "you" with my right hand, and then wait to type out "saw" with my left, the act of preparing to type out the other word would distract me from what I'm already trying to do. Reading ahead makes sense, but I don't know if that usually turns into phyiscal movement.

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Score (WPM) distribution for this quote. More.

Best scores for this typing test

Name WPM Accuracy
user871724 185.48 96.3%
user871724 172.50 95%
user871724 166.19 96.4%
user871724 163.25 94.1%
user871724 162.80 94.3%
user871724 162.49 95.7%
user871724 159.11 94.8%
venerated 154.54 98.0%

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