The Effects of Screen Refresh Rate on Editing Operations Using a Computer Mouse Pointing Device

Two experiments are described in which subjects attempted to locate a specified target word in a short text using a cursor controlled by a computer mouse pointing device. The task was performed at screen refresh rates of 50 Hz, 75 Hz, and 100 Hz. In Experiment 1, both the timing and accuracy of the cursor movement was influenced by screen pulsation. During the early phase of the movement, performance was worse at 100 Hz, whereas in the later, visually guided phase, performance was worse at 50 Hz. In Experiment 2, eye movements were recorded as the task was performed. The results show that the cursor movement is typically preceded by an eye movement and that subjects do not directly inspect the cursor in the early stages of its movement. In the later phase of the movement the cursor is tracked for considerable periods of time. The data suggest that adverse effects of screen pulsation on the control of cursor movement are inherited from penalties incurred during the process of target computation but may also be influenced by concurrent eye movements.