The Arrangement of Instruments, the Distance between Instruments, and the Position of Instrument Pointers as Determinants of Performance in an Eye-Hand Coordination Task

• Main Authors: Fitts, Paul M, Simon, Charles W
• Other Authors: AIR TECHNICAL SERVICE COMMAND WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OH AERO MEDICAL LAB
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1952
• Subjects: Psychology; *PSYCHOMOTOR TESTS; HORIZONTAL ORIENTATION; INSTRUMENT DIALS; INSTRUMENTATION; PATTERNS; POSITION(LOCATION); RANGE(DISTANCE); SEPARATION; STIMULI; VERTICAL ORIENTATION; VISUAL PERCEPTION; ATI-147788; ATI COLLECTION; The Pointers
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA800395; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA800395

Three experiments are reported In which the effects of various visual stimulus patterns formed by different arrangements of instruments and pointers ere studied. For the task employed, which as a continuous, dual-pursuit problem, the results of all three experiments are in agreement in indicating that subjects give significantly superior performance when instruments are close together, instruments are aligned horizontally, and pointers are aligned at 9 o'clock for horizontally separated instruments and at 12 o'clock for vertically-separated instruments, or else the pointers are counterpoised. The results of an extended learning study indicated that differences in the initial performance of individuals when using the different pointer-position patterns actually increased during fifteen daily practice sessions. Prepared in collaboration with Antioch College.