Motor expertise for typing impacts lexical decision performance

The massive shift in writing habits calls for a better understanding of the possible consequences of typing practice on language processing, including reading. To assess a possible impact of typing knowledge on word recognition, we built a set of words and pseudowords differing by their ratio of bimanual transitions between letters, an index of typing difficulty for experts. An effect of typing difficulty was observed in expert participants who were actually typing the items and not in a control group of hunt-and-peck typists. We then tested whether word recognition, measured with the task of lexical decision, was impacted by the typing difficulty of words. We found that lexical decision latencies varied as a function of typing difficulty, but differently for experts and non-experts. The effect was mostly driven by pseudowords. This suggests that motor representations built during the practice of typing have a collateral effect on visual recognition processes. The implications for education are discussed.