I am going to digress a little this week. I enjoyed class a tremendous amount on Thursday. The one thing that has stuck in my mind the most is the typing example. I never (or rarely) look at the keypad when I type. But, I had never thought about it much before. I have always assumed that the little bumps on the 'k' and 'd' were guiding me, but I never knew why or how. I also find it interesting that when I misspell a word, I fell it rather than see it on the screen. It seems as if my mind says a word and my fingers respond, and if something goes wrong, I notice it after it has already been sent to my fingers, and I can't do anything about it except use the delete key. I have been thinking of other situations that might fit into the same category of "unconscious"--quotes because I'm not real sure if that is the right word--actions that seemingly use the eyes as input, but really rely mostly from repetitive actions. 1) snooze bar. How come I can hit the snooze bar 3 or 4 times and not notice it? All of a sudden it is 14 minutes after the alarm was set for when I hear it for the first time. Clearly, I hit the snooze bar, but I certianly don't remember? 2) driving the car. I made an hour communte to Princeton several times a week last year from Phila. sometimes I would "space" and find myself 15 miles down the road and be able to tell you what was on the radio but not on the road. I just seemed like I knew where I was going so well, that I didn't really pay attention that much--not all that safe, I suppose. my third example was hitting the baseball during batting practice, but now that I am typing it, it doesn't seem to fall into the same category. I feel like I can tell where the ball is going the instant it leaves the pitcher's hand and I know when to swing and when not to swing (not that I always hit the ball). It seems that if the ball moves at 75 mph and it is travelling 60 feet, I only have .55 sec to react and hit the ball. Surely the neurons don't react that fast. What is the explanation? I'm not sure if it is the same phenomenon.

I wouldn't call all that digression, its right to the point. And fascinating. Many thanks. Let's be a little careful, though. At this point in the course we haven't really yet said much about the "I-function", other than that it exists and lots can be done without it. Most of your examples are in fact about doing things without the "I-function", rather than doing things without ongoing sensory input. Your last point, though, is entirely CPG related, and has even been studied to some degree. Neither you, nor anyone else, has time to respond to sensory input once the ball has left a good pitcher's hand. So the swing is (pretty much) a CPG. Presumably a good hitter collects a LOT of information which (.333 of the time) adequately predicts the path of the ball so the right CPG can be selected and played out (the "pretty much" has to do with the fact that there may well be some dependence on more or less steady state sensory input during the movement). Yes, your experience of having to use the delete key instead of realizing and correcting in progress a typing mistake is probably because of a CPG. The interesting question (maybe later in the course?) is how did the I-function get involved (whoops, I KNOW I mistyped). And its actually the I-function not involved that characterizes driving more than CPG's. Much of driving involves unconscious adjustments based on sensory input rather than the playing out of motor symphonies unperturbed by sensory input. PG