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    An interesting psychological phenomenon

    • Started by Wedge
    • 2 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 26-Jan-2013
    • Posts: 6

    I've been on Colemak fulltime for a couple months, and I'm averaging around 50wpm.  I think I could be much faster by now, except that I still make a lot of mistakes.  What I find very interesting is the nature of the mistakes that I tend to make.

    Touch typing is a subconscious act.  You don't think about what key to hit, you just hit it, right? 
    Based on that, I would expect that when learning Colemak from QWERTY I would occasionally hit the QWERTY key directly instead of the Colemak key.  But that's not what is happening.  What I've observed in myself is that most of my mistakes, I am using the correct finger for Colemak, but I'm hitting the row for QWERTY.  Even if it's the wrong hand, it happens the same way.

    For example: instead of 'r' I will sometimes hit 'w'.  Instead of 'o', I will sometimes hit ';'. Even if the hands are opposite: trying to hit 'e' I will hit 'u'.
    In examining my mistakes I have found this to be rather consistent.  Colemak finger hitting the QWERTY row.


    Anyone else experience anything like this?  Any tips on how to get past it?
    I feel like I'll be back at or very near my full QWERTY speed once I can get past this stage.

    Last edited by Wedge (18-Mar-2013 19:43:36)
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    • From: Sofia, Bulgaria
    • Registered: 05-Mar-2011
    • Posts: 387

    Hitting U instead of E is common, since it's mirrored from its Qwerty position, but what you're describing is different. It hasn't happened to me, so I can assume we learn the layout in a different manner...

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    • Registered: 08-Dec-2010
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    Relearning muscle memory takes time. A few months are not enough to completely remove Qwerty from your brain.

    You should practise with slower speed but 100% accuracy so that your brain can register the correct key repeatedly.

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