Comparing typing production of literal and figurative statements in the TypeRacer database

Typing involves identifying and encoding the to-be-typed word, computing its meaning, and planning and executing the appropriate keystroke sequence. Measures of typing, such as keystroke latencies, are thus thought to reflect the processing of linguistic information. Using keystroke data from the TypeRacer online game, Chen et al. (2021)Chen, R., Levy, R., & Eisape, T. (2021). On factors influencing typing time: insights from a viral online typing game. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43, 43. Retrieved September 11, 2023. Retrieved from [URL] found that words that are more frequent, and more predictable (i.e., more likely to co-occur with other words in their context) were typed more quickly. Importantly, context shapes the meaning a word takes on, in addition to determining its likelihood of occurrence. Specifically, in figurative expressions, words take on meanings that are different from their literal and denotative meanings. We examined whether computing a figurative meaning for a word influences its typing by comparing the typing speeds of words that take on a figurative meaning and words that do not. Figurative words are generally not typed more slowly than literal words, but a potential conflict between a word’s literal and figurative meanings can slow down its production.