Typewriting is an activity that is used in significant demand nowadays.
How the brain assembles and plans the sequence of typing skilled to avoid
repeated actions, perform the immediate actions, and executed the future
actions correctly; it is being studied by Lawrence Behmer, Professor at the
University of Loyola at Chicago. He has conducted the first direct tests of the
parallel action regulation hypothesis during sequencing in humans. He examines
the motor evoked potentials (MEPs), which are stimulations of the brain that
causes the activation of a muscle. These stimuli were done by transcranial
magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive magnetic device over the left motor
cortex for the flexion of the right index finger during typing. Each
participant typed 72 words and 72 strings (nonwords) as accurate as possible. They found that early response is more active
compared with later responses in a sequence, which showed a parallel regulation
of actions. In this situation, MEP amplitudes decrease across the serial
position. Also, it was found that MEPs were lower in the first position
compared with the incoming response in the second position. It suggests the
next planning action in the second position. Finally, it was found a
distinction between words and random strings during parallel activation of
future actions, implying the ability to regulate actions in parallel depends on
experience.
Another study related
to parallel regulation is "The Scope of Planning Serial Actions during
Typing" conducted by F-Xavier Alario and colleagues. Their goal was to
investigate the range response planning in highly serial task typing, by
explaining the lateralized readiness potential (LRP), which is an event-related
potential (ERPs) that occurred at the surface of the brain just before a motor
movement executed. The measurement of LRP is used to analyze premotor and motor
preparation during the interval between the ready signal and stimulus.
Participant typed a total of 180 words using the left hand. They were allowed
to make corrections within the time interval. Their compared motor-related ERPs
of words typed with only the left hand with the words typed with the left hand,
but with a deviant that was typed with the right hand occurring either early
(Early Deviant condition) or late (Late-deviant condition) in the sequence.
They found that LRP was significantly
reduced in the Early-deviant condition, suggesting that hand-alternation at the
beginning of the typed sequence delays the onset of the response. However, no
difference was found when comparing the control and the Late-deviant condition.
Activation is still parallel but graded. In this case, the final keystrokes are
less active compared to the first ones. This finding is related to Behmer's
results, where the early response is more active compared with later responses
in a sequence that showed a parallel regulation of actions. Also, LRP was able
to distinguish activation and inhibition dynamics in the motor cortex. These
are similar to the conclusion of Behmer that showed the serial inhibition
across all actions.
Furthermore, actions
are necessary because they help us to perform accurately. For that
reason, understanding the parallel regulation of action would help to regulated
to avoid repetitions, achieved skill performance, and skill behaviors.
Citation:
Alario, Xavier, et al. “The Scope of Planning
Serial Actions during Typing.” MIT Press Journals, Nov. 2018, www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/jocn_a_01305?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed.
Behmer, L. P., Jr., Jantzen, K. J., Martinez, S., Walls, R., Amir-Brownstein, E., Jaye, A., Leytze, M., Lucier, K., & Crump, M. J. C. (2018). Parallel regulation of past, present, and future actions during sequencing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(8), 1147–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000507
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