The psychological
analysis shows that the increase of ability in the receiving of
telegrams depends upon the development of a complex system of
psychophysical habits. The periods in which the curve does not ascend
represent stages of training in which the elementary habits are
almost completely formed, but have not become sufficiently automatic.
The attention is therefore not yet ready to start habits of a higher
order. The lowest correlation refers to the single letters, after that
to the syllables and words. As soon as the apprentice has reached this
point, he stops, because he must learn to master more and more new
words until his telegraphic vocabulary is large enough to make it
possible for him to turn his consciousness to whole groups of words at
once. Only when this new habit has been made automatic by a training
of several months can he advance to a level at which whole groups of
words are perceived as telegraphic units. A time follows in which this
mastery of whole phrases advances rapidly, until a new period of rest
comes, from which, only after years and often quite suddenly, a last
new ascent can be noticed. Instead of concentrating the attention with
conscious strain on single phrases, the operator progresses to a
perfect liberty in which whole sentences are understood automatically.
We also have a model experimental research into the psychological
conditions of learning in the case of writing on a typewriter.
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