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ERIC Number: EJ1476893
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Dec
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2365-7464
Available Date: 2025-07-15
Are Fluent Letter Dyads Really Fluent? An Update on Objective and Subjective Motor Fluency in an Italian Student Population
Mara Stockner1; Giuliana Mazzoni1; Francesco Ianì2,3
Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, v10 Article 42 2025
"Motor fluency" refers to the ease with which an action can be performed and several studies have shown how it can modulate various cognitive processes, such as memory and decision making. To investigate these implications of motor fluency, typing-based paradigms have been proven to be useful. In this literature, based on pioneering works that analysed inter-keystroke intervals (IKIs, the time that elapses between two keystrokes), several studies have assumed that letter dyads typed with different hands are more fluent than dyads typed with the same hand. However, to date, there is no literature analysing subjectively perceived typing fluency, i.e. the feeling of fluency experienced by typists. Moreover, this classical conceptualization has not been updated in the last decade. This raises the question of whether this distinction is also reflected in the subjective feeling of fluency, and whether it is still valid in today's generation of everyday typists. Thus, we investigated the validity of dyad fluency classification by measuring both objective and subjective typing fluency in two samples of university students. The objective measure included both the response times required to type the entire dyads (Experiment 1) as well as reaction times from stimulus presentation to first keypress alongside IKIs (Experiment 2). Overall, we found consistent results that both objective and subjective measures follow the opposite trend compared to classical assumptions: same-hand dyads are (perceived) more fluent than different-hands dyads. Our results have important methodological implications for future research on typing-related motor fluency.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Rome, Italy; 2University of Turin, Department of Psychology, Turin, Italy; 3University of Turin, Centro di Logica, Linguaggio, e Cognizione, Turin, Italy