The Generality of a Theory of the Intermittent Control of Accurate Movements

Abstract

Equations developed to describe target aiming, accurate line drawing movements and driving skill, each contain a measure of the angular accuracy of aiming. Our experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that the measures of angular accuracy for the different tasks are related to each other and are a characteristic of the subject. One prediction from this hypothesis is that ability in such tasks should be correlated. However, we found no significant correlation in performance in non-visual target aiming, line drawing, and walking along beams of different width.

Despite the failure of this prediction, the data in each case fitted the theoretical equations very well, both for individual subjects and when collapsed across subjects. We must conclude either, that the angular error of aiming is characteristic only of the subject-task interaction, or that other parameters in the equations vary considerably from task to task.