ABSTRACT
We examined whether measures of typing performance could test predictions
about how learning and memory participate in the acquisition of skilled
serial-ordering abilities. Models of learning and memory make straightforward
predictions about how people become sensitive to sequential regularities in actions
that they produce. Novices become tuned to lower-order statistics, like single
letter frequencies, then with expertise develop sensitivity to higher-order statistics,
like bigram and trigram frequencies, and in the process appear to lose sensitivity
to lower-order statistics. We saw clear evidence of these general trends in our
cross-sectional analysis of a large number of typists.
