In continuous, reciprocal Fitts' Law tapping, movement timing and spatial accuracy control may be considered as two micro-tasks within an overall psychomotor task. Usually, timing demands are secondary while the spatial accuracy is stressed. In an experiment in which both timing and spatial demands were manipulated and equally important, subjects were required to divide available attention between these performance dimensions. Results are discussed in terms of current timesharing models.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
KantowitzB.H.KnightJ. L.Jr.Testing tapping timesharing: Attention demands of movement control. In StelmachG. (Ed.), Information Processing and Motor Learning.New York: Academic Press, 1978.
2.
KalsbeekJ.W.H.Sinus arythmia and the dual-task method in measuring mental load. In Measurement of Man at Work, SingletonW. T.FoxJ.G.WhitfieldD. (eds.), 1971, London: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
3.
KlappS.T.Timing of motor responses. Paper presented at 18th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, 1977, Washington, D. C.
4.
KnightJ.L.Jr.Calculational Subroutines for target width and movement amplitude corrections and normal distribution parameters. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentations, 1977, 9, 522–524.