The utilization of visual feedback information during rapid pointing movements

Three experiments were conducted to determine how variables other than movement time influence the speed of visual feedback utilization in a target-pointing task. In Experiment 1, subjects moved a stylus to a target 20 cm away with movement times of approximately 225 msec. Visual feedback was manipulated by leaving the room lights on over the whole course of the movement or extinguishing the lights upon movement initiation, while prior knowledge about feedback availability was manipulated by blocking or randomizing feedback. Subjects exhibited less radial error in the lights-on/blocked condition than in the other three conditions. In Experiment 2, when subjects were forced to use vision by a laterally displacing prism, it was found that they benefited from the presence of visual feedback regardless of feedback uncertainty even when moving very rapidly (e.g. less than 190 msec). In Experiment 3, subjects pointed with and without a prism over a wide variety of movement times. Subjects benefited from vision much earlier in the prism condition. Subjects seem able to use vision rapidly to modify aiming movements but may do so only when the visual information is predictably available and/or yields an error large enough to detect early enough to correct.