Mysterious typos we make

[compwiz1202]

I would attribute that to plain old muscle memory.

If someone has typed the word "important" three thousand times, it's as though they've rehearsed that word like a pianist rehearses a passage – the pianist's goal is to train their mind to execute the sequence of movements with a minimum of conscious thought. (Then, when it comes time for them to type the rarer "imported," they might have to blink and think more deliberately.)

It would strike me as odd if this didn't happen to typists in various and individualized ways.

Definitely happens to me. I can't think about typing or I lose speed and accuracy. The one it backfires for me on is when I have to change password. I always do fine the same day but then I have the same cycle after:

Put in wrong one and not catch it.
Put in wrong one but catch myself before hitting enter.
Then I finally get the new one right away

The nice thing about muscle memory is for PINS, I don't pick numbers that mean anything. I pick numbers that are easy to type. So it's quick for muscle memory to master, but no one can use things familar to me to hack it.

 

[Starfia]

Even if that's the case, it's still mysterious why it happens regularly with only some words and not others. The brain is a complex thing for sure!

No doubt there are other factors that complicate the equation, but I imagine muscle memory is one significant factor.

 

[usagora]

Funny - occasionally I step back and look at some English words and try to pretend for a minute that English is a foreign language to me. Hard to do sometimes, but if you can, some words look really bizarre - even ones we use constantly.

Ok, an example I just thought of is the noun "minute" (as in 60 seconds). If you pretend you've never heard nor seen that word before in English, it looks very odd. And of course it can also be an adjective, in which case it's pronounced differently.

 

[Nermal]

I often mistype "studio" as "stupid". I also sometimes have to type "STAGING" in all caps at work and rather than press Caps Lock I tend to hold Shift. Due to the key positions that often comes out as "STaGING".

 

[Gregg2]

There's a word that I always seemed to mis-type, but I can't remember what it wsa.