We also have a model experimental research into the psychological conditions of learning in the case of writing on a typewriter.[21] By electrical connections between the typewriting machine and a system of levers which registered their movements on the rotating drum of a kymograph, graph, each striking of a key, each completion of a word, or of a line, could be recorded in exact time-relations.  Each glance at the copy was also registered.  It was found that the process of learning consisted first of a continuous simplification of the cumbersome methods with which the beginner commences.  A steady elimination of unfit movements, a selection, a reorganization, and finally, a combination of psychophysical acts to impulses of higher order, could be traced exactly.  Here, too, the curve of learning at first rises quickly and then more and more slowly.  Of course the usual fluctuations in the growth of the ability can also be found, and above all the irregular periods of rest in which the learning itself does not progress, for some of these so-called plateaus which lie between the end of one ascent and the beginning of the next may cover a month and more.  At the beginning we have the elementary association between the single letter and the position of the corresponding key, but soon an immediate connection between the visual impression of the whole syllable or the whole word and the total group of movements necessary to strike the keys for it is developed.  The more the ability grows, the more these psychical impulses of higher order become organized without conscious intention.  The study shows that this development of higher habits has already begun before the lower habits are fully settled.

How far the special training involves at the same time a general training which could be of advantage for other kinds of labor has not yet been studied at all with reference to industrial technique.  There we are still completely dependent upon certain experiences in the field of experimental pedagogy, and upon certain statistics, for instance, in the textile industry.  Many patient investigations, with every independent group of apparatus and machines, may be necessary before psychotechnics will be able to supply industry with reliable advice for teaching and learning.  Nor have we the least right hastily to carry over the results from one group of movements to another.  Even where superficially a certain similarity between the technical factors exists, the psychophysical conditions may be essentially different.  In the two cases mentioned, for instance, telegraphing and typewriting, the chief factor seems the same, as in both cases the aim is to make the quickest possible finger movements for purposes of signals; and yet it is not surprising that the development of the ability from the beginnings to the highest mastery is rather unlike, as all the movements in telegraphing are performed with the same finger, while in typewriting the chief trait is the organization of groups from the impulses