The Effects of Various Visual Enhancements During Continuous Pursuit Tracking Tasks

The present study investigated the effects of visual enhancements in a continuous pursuit tracking task. Participants performed simulated tracking tasks and were instructed to maintain a pointer on a moving horizontal bar of an indicator display using a computer mouse. Within-subject factorial design was implemented with three levels of visual enhancement and three levels of task difficulty. Subjective ratings of workload (using modified Cooper-Harper rating scale) and tracking errors were obtained as performance measures. ANOVA results showed that the tracking error and subjective workload were significantly affected by each of the independent variables (i.e., the types of visual enhancement and task difficulties). The result implies that visual enhancement cues can provide additional visual information of target location during tracking tasks