"Texting", like many other everyday tasks aint so simple as it looks. Typing even a simple string, requires us to make use of our motor functions, a bit of computation and visual perception. Roughly, the task maybe broken into:
* Breaking the string into a sequence of characters
* Computing which keystrokes are required to enter a given character
* The motor function of pressing the required key(s) the requisite number of times
* Error checking
Pressing a key throws up some difficulties. To discover more about the human cognition, we did a small experiment with some of our wingmates:
We asked some of our friends addicted to texting, where on the keypad "v" was located. They had to think for some time before they could answer. But, when their thumb was placed on the key "5", and they were told to type a random character, their response time was shorter.
Our conclusion: Similar to a touch typist, the fingers know where the keys are located, but its almost never a conscious computation when we're typing.
One might think of the following difficulties coming to how a robot would type: How does the robot know where the key is located? How does it know the key has been pressed? And pressed the required number of times? In our analysis, we have tried to answer some of these questions.