It’s better if consecutive taps are done with different fingers or, better yet, different hands. [...] Not so fast! Typing could be constrained by neurological not physical speed, for example.
We do not optimize for speed alone, but for “speed, while typing correctly”.
I imagine that at high speed, there is a significant risk of typing keys in wrong order. If you wait until the first finger completes its job before starting to move the second finger, I assume this is slower that when your brain kinda sends the commands in parallel. I mean, when the second finger activates at the moment when the first finger is still somewhere in the middle of its action, so that the first finger still types its key first, but the delay between the first and the second finger is smaller.
BTW, this is all just my assumption. I didn’t do or review any research, and I am not a competitive typist.
But if this is true, then I suppose that if consecutive keys are pressed by fingers on different hands, the coordination is more difficult, because both brain hemispheres need to coordinate on the timing. So it is not obvious to me that alternating hands is preferable, if your goal is to type as fast as possible (but correctly). Yes, you can get faster, but maybe at the cost of making more errors.
But if this is true, then I suppose that if consecutive keys are pressed by fingers on different hands, the coordination is more difficult, because both brain hemispheres need to coordinate on the timing. So it is not obvious to me that alternating hands is preferable
On the flip side: there is more potential of interference between pressing keys with different fingers on the same hand than pressing different keys with different hands. (Either mechanical—moving one finger does affect the other fingers on the same hand—or neurological.)
I don’t know the relative importance of these factors.
We do not optimize for speed alone, but for “speed, while typing correctly”.
I imagine that at high speed, there is a significant risk of typing keys in wrong order. If you wait until the first finger completes its job before starting to move the second finger, I assume this is slower that when your brain kinda sends the commands in parallel. I mean, when the second finger activates at the moment when the first finger is still somewhere in the middle of its action, so that the first finger still types its key first, but the delay between the first and the second finger is smaller.
BTW, this is all just my assumption. I didn’t do or review any research, and I am not a competitive typist.
But if this is true, then I suppose that if consecutive keys are pressed by fingers on different hands, the coordination is more difficult, because both brain hemispheres need to coordinate on the timing. So it is not obvious to me that alternating hands is preferable, if your goal is to type as fast as possible (but correctly). Yes, you can get faster, but maybe at the cost of making more errors.
On the flip side: there is more potential of interference between pressing keys with different fingers on the same hand than pressing different keys with different hands. (Either mechanical—moving one finger does affect the other fingers on the same hand—or neurological.)
I don’t know the relative importance of these factors.