Real-world keystroke dynamics are a potentially valid biomarker for clinical disability in multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Clinical measures in multiple sclerosis (MS) face limitations that may be overcome by utilising smartphone keyboard interactions acquired continuously and remotely during regular typing. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the reliability and validity of keystroke dynamics to assess clinical aspects of MS. METHODS: In total, 102 MS patients and 24 controls were included in this observational study. Keyboard interactions were obtained with the Neurokeys keyboard app. Eight timing-related keystroke features were assessed for reliability with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs); construct validity by analysing group differences (in fatigue, gadolinium-enhancing lesions on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and patients vs controls); and concurrent validity by correlating with disability measures. RESULTS: Reliability was moderate in two (ICC = 0.601 and 0.742) and good to excellent in the remaining six features (ICC = 0.760-0.965). Patients had significantly higher keystroke latencies than controls. Latency between key presses correlated the highest with Expanded Disability Status Scale (r = 0.407) and latency between key releases with Nine-Hole Peg Test and Symbol Digit Modalities Test (ρ = 0.503 and r = -0.553, respectively), ps < 0.001. CONCLUSION: Keystroke dynamics were reliable, distinguished patients and controls, and were associated with clinical disability measures. Consequently, keystroke dynamics are a promising valid surrogate marker for clinical disability in MS.

Touch-Typing Detection Using Eyewear: Toward Realizing a New Interaction for Typing Applications.

Typing skills are important in the digital information society of this generation. As a method to improve typing speed, in this study, we focused on the training of touch typing that enables typing a key without looking at the keyboard. For support of touch-typing training, it is efficient to apply a penalty if a learner looks at the keyboard; however, to realize the penalty method, the computer needs to be able to recognize whether the learner looked at the keyboard. We, therefore, proposed a method to detect a learner's eye gaze, namely, using eyewear to detect whether the learner looked at the keyboard, and then evaluating the detection accuracy of our proposed method. We examined the necessity for our system by analyzing the relationship between a learner's eye gaze and touch-typing skills.

Two thumbs and one index: A comparison of manual coordination in touch-typing and mobile-typing.

It has been extensively demonstrated that in touch-typing, manual alternation is performed faster than manual repetition (see i.e. Rumelhart & Norman, 1982), due to parallel activation of successive keystrokes. In this experiment, we tested whether the manual coordination patterns typical of touch-typing can be observed in mobile-typing. We recruited skilled touch-typists and divided them into two groups depending on their typing habits on the mobile device. The "one-hand" group typed with one index finger on the mobile, and therefore produced words exclusively through manual repetition. The "two-hands" group used two thumbs, and therefore produced words through a combination of mobile-typing repetitions and alternations. The two groups were tested in a typing to dictation task with both a standard keyboard and a mobile keyboard. Results showed that manual alternation and manual repetition patterns are similar in touch-typing and in mobile-typing. For the "two-hands" group, the mean interkeystroke intervals (IKIs) for touch-typing decreased as manual alterations in words increased in both touch- and mobile-typing. The "one-hand" group showed an opposite pattern in mobile-typing. Bigram frequency was correlated with IKIs per bigrams in both tasks and groups, but the correlation for the "one-hand" group in mobile-typing was different. Our results suggest that manual coordination processes are the same in touch-typing and in mobile-typing despite different effectors, provided that both hands are used to type.

Idea units in notes and summaries for read texts by keyboard and pencil in middle childhood students with specific learning disabilities: Cognitive and brain findings.

Seven children with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia (2 girls, 5 boys, M=11 years) completed fMRI connectivity scans before and after twelve weekly computerized lessons in strategies for reading source material, taking notes, and writing summaries by touch typing or groovy pencils. During brain scanning they completed two reading comprehension tasks-one involving single sentences and one involving multiple sentences. From before to after intervention, fMRI connectivity magnitude changed significantly during sentence level reading comprehension (from right angular gyrus→right Broca's) and during text level reading comprehension (from right angular gyrus→cingulate). Proportions of ideas units in children's writing compared to idea units in source texts did not differ across combinations of reading-writing tasks and modes. Yet, for handwriting/notes, correlations insignificant before the lessons became significant after the strategy instruction between proportion of idea units and brain connectivity at all levels of language in reading comprehension (word-, sentence-, and text) during scanning; but for handwriting/summaries, touch typing/notes, and touch typing/summaries changes in those correlations from insignificant to significant after strategy instruction occurred only at text level reading comprehension during scanning. Thus, handwriting during note-taking may benefit all levels of language during reading comprehension, whereas all other combinations of modes and writing tasks in this exploratory study appear to benefit only the text level of reading comprehension. Neurological and educational significance of the interdisciplinary research findings for integrating reading and writing and future research directions are discussed.

The effect of a touch-typing program on keyboarding skills of higher education students with and without learning disabilities.

This study examined the effect of a touch-typing instructional program on keyboarding skills of higher education students. One group included students with developmental learning disabilities (LD, n=44), consisting of students with reading and/or handwriting difficulties. The second group included normally achieving students (NA, n=30). The main goal of the program was to increase keyboarding speed while maintaining accuracy. The program included 14 bi-weekly touch-typing lessons, using the "Easy-Fingers" software (Weigelt Marom & Weintraub, 2010a), that combines a touch-typing instructional program and a keystroke logging program, to document the time and accuracy of each typed key. The effect of the program was examined by comparing keyboarding skills between the beginning (pre-test), the end of the program (post-test) and 3 months after termination of the program (long-term). Results showed that at the end of the program, keyboarding speed of the NA students decreased while the speed of the students with LD somewhat increased. In the long-term evaluation, both groups significantly improved their speed compared to pre-test. In both cases high accuracy (above 95%) was maintained. These results suggest that touch-typing instruction may benefit students in general, and more specific, students with LD studying in higher education, which often use computers in order to circumvent their handwriting difficulties.