My Typing Brain

At my Do you hate your computer? post, I mentioned my frustration with spelling correction that isn't smart enough to look at the context.

For example, it really wouldn't be a terribly difficult task to determine if I meant "of" or "if" at the word just before "I meant" in this very sentence should I happen to fat-finger the keys.

The algorithm wouldn't need to be perfect. Just looking for the proximity of a verb could solve that correctly most of the time. Not always, of course, but I'm not looking for perfection. Not yet, anyway.

Dumb Computers

A smart checker wouldn't even need to invoke its "smarts" constantly. The "o" and "i" keys are close to each other, so this is a place where mistakes are likely to happen. When it sees "if" or "of", it should be suspicious. An error may have just happened.

The automatic typing fixers such as are on my iPad translates "kf" to "if" and "lf" to "of". Frankly, that's not helpful - it would be better to just leave it alone as it does for "jf" and other wild combinations. My reasoning is that leaving it underlined in red makes it easier to spot; making a correction that has a good chance of being wrong leaves the error invisible.

I can shut off the correction feature, but it can be helpful with longer words - not because I'm a bad speller, but because the size of the iPad keyboard makes it easy to make mistakes.

My own worst enemy

Even if the computer were smarter about spelling, I'd still get myself into trouble. I realized some time ago that I have a "typing brain".

You talking to me?

I talk to myself when I write.

Not out loud, but there is an echo for each word just before I type it. Apparently some other part of my brain listens and does the actual typing. That makes sense: it would be distracting if I had to pay attention to the mechanics of typing - it would interfere with the creative process and slow me down. I'm sure most people's brains work in a similar manner.

Even the echo itself may come from another brain part. Unless I consciously think about it, the echo is much more like breathing. I'm not aware of it normally; I'm focused on my thoughts about the sentence, the paragraph, the whole document.

It's all a great division of labor. If I had to interrupt my thoughts to make sure the typing brain knew what to do, I would again be slowed and annoyed. It would be like dictating to someone else - except, of course, that a human taking dictation would be much more aware of context than my typing brain is.

I have tried Dragon Dictation but just can't get into it. Part of that might be the necessity to consciously speak - as I noted above, that interferes with my thoughts.

What's in your head?

I wonder if other folks typing brains are as ignorant or careless of context as mine sometimes is. I have watched the screen and been quite surprised to see "their" be typed when I meant "there". Of course if I do see that, I probably start backspacing the instant I see the erroneous "i". But that does depend upon how much attention I am paying - my eyes may have moved back to start re-reading another paragraph or my brain may be busily engaged with the next thought and be paying scant attention to the words of the last sentence.

I'm not certain if that typing brain part is unaware of context or is just sometimes distracted by its own agenda. If it is distracted, what distracted it? A random emotional response from some other part of my brain that also hears the words? Some other external even too subtle for my busy forebrain to take notice of? It could be any of those things.

I have not been able to figure out if imagery helps that typing brain make better decisions. I have sometimes seen "bear" appear when I meant "bare". I wonder if that is because I was writing something with low imagery content, say "the bare essentials" as opposed to something more visually evocative like "bare naked". Obviously this is not something adaptable to experimentation; I just have to wait for an error like this to happen and then analyze it after the fact.

Do you have a typing brain? Have you been able to learn more about it by digging into the context surrounding mistakes it has made? Or does your writing work differently? If you find writing difficult, could that be because you do not have a typing brain and have to control the process directly? Can you write more or less fluidly using an old fashioned pen or pencil?

I'll be very interested to hear your opinion.

By the way, my typing brain tried to type "here" in that last sentence. I caught it in the act. Nice try, brainiac.