On the Development of Motor Chunks and Concurrent Processing in a Structured Continuous Keypressing Task
Abstract
This report describes an experiment designed to assess the effects of practice in performing a structured sequence of keypresses. The task consisted of pressing a sequence of nine keys with nine fingers, each in response to a corresponding stimulus. Each response was followed by a response-stimulus interval (RSI), which sometimes was zero ms, before the next stimulus was presented. Upon completion of one sequence, production of the identical sequence was immediately repeated. One group of 18 subjects-the 333 group-practiced with three regularly spaced, non-negligible, response-stimulus intervals (RSIs) white the remaining RSIs were zero. This divided the sequence into three groups of three keypresses each. Another group of 18 subjects-the 45 group-practiced with two non-negligible RSIs partitioning the sequence into a four- and a five-key group. These conditions were coined structured conditions. on occasion all subjects carried out a condition in which all RSIs were zero. This was the unstructured condition. The results show that interkey times in this condition clearly reflected the position of the long RSIs in the structured condition. This suggests that motor chunks had developed in the structured condition which were also used in the unstructured condition. More detailed analyses suggest that preparing one chunk concurred with execution of the preceding chunk in the unstructured and probably also in the structured condition. Concurrent preparation of the next chunk stowed down execution of the preceding chunk in the unstructured condition. in the structured condition it concealed effects of chunk-size on initiating each chunk (i.e. the complexity effect).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1993
- Accession Number
- ADA274153
Entities
People
- W. B. Verwey
- Y. Dronkert