As most of the working world can attest, errors are a common part of the work day. Whether it's sending an email to the wrong person, forgetting to attach a document to your email, or even the ubiquitous email typo, we are constantly screwing up. Often times we aren't even aware that we have made a mistake - at least until someone points it out to us. New research suggest, however, that even when our conscious brain doesn't register mistakes, our body often does.
In a recent paper published in Science, psychologists Gordon Logan and Matthew Crump investigated skilled typists' ability to detect errors in their own typing. Typing is an interesting activity to study because, like so many familiar things we do everyday from making coffee to walking, it runs off on autopilot. People's fingers zoom across the keyboard without them needing to think about the particular keys being pressed.
The researchers had people type words that appeared on a computer screen and then report whether they had made any errors. Unbeknownst to the typists, while they typed, a computer program corrected errors that they had actually made and inserted new errors when the typists had - in reality - pressed the correct key. The question was, did people notice what was going on?
Typists generally took the blame for the errors the program had inserted and took the credit for mistakes the computer had corrected. Surprisingly, however, the typists' fingers knew the truth. Their fingers slowed down when a typing error was made - even if the computer program corrected it on the screen - and their fingers didn't slow down if an inserted error (one that the typists had not made) appeared on the screen. Our autopilot, it turns out, is very smart. Even when the mind doesn't consciously detect that you have made an error, your fingers do.
These findings suggest that there are multiple ways we control our performance and detect errors in what we do. Well-learned activities like typing, hitting a 3-foot putt, and even playing a musical instrument seem to involve multiple processes: One process takes care of the details (typing specific keys and coordinating all your muscles to hit a perfect shot). Logan talks about this as the "inner loop." Another process, or "outer loop," ensures that our desired outcome occurs (the song is performed and the ball is sunk). Interestingly, these processes don't necessarily communicate with each other. That's why, when typists don't see an error on the screen, their fingers slow anyway after a mistake.
This idea of multiple control processes helps to explain why paying too much attention to your practiced golf swing, musical solo, or memorized speech can lead to a flubbed performance. Given that Logan's study shows that our outer loop really has no idea what our inner loop is doing, it's no surprise that trying to consciously thinking about those activities that are best run-off on autopilot disrupts them. This work also suggests why prompting the outer loop to focus on the outcome (e.g.. the hole you are trying to hit or a smooth follow-through) aids performance. In a nutshell, focusing the outer loop on the goal keeps it from muddling in the details and disrupting performance. So, the next time you want to impress your friends or family with your athletic prowess, keep the outer loop out of it and, as Nike says, "just do it."
For more on preventing flubbed performances and ensuring you do your best - especially under pressure - check out my new book Choke.
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Logan, G. D., & Crump, M. J. C. (2010). Cognitive Illusions of Authorship Reveal Hierarchical Error Detection in Skilled Typists, 330, 683-686.
