Speed of Aiming Movements

Fitts' Law describes human movement time in the horizontal and frontal planes, but its application to movement in the sagittal plane has been questioned by Beggs and Howarth. To evaluate the Law in this plane, eight subjects performed a forearm action, similar to dart-throwing without release, moving a stylus through the sagittal plane from a back contact plate forward to a target. Four movement distances, 8, 12, 16 and 20 in, were combined with four target widths, 1/4, 1/2, 1 and 2 in, in 16 experimental conditions. Following practice all subjects were tested in each condition, with visual knowledge of results. The plot of movement time against log 2A/W was essentially linear, accounting for 92.6% of the variance.

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