Experimental Hybrid-Computer Automation In Perceptual-Motor And Social Behaviorial Research

Abstract

A hybrid-computer laboratory has made possible systematic procedures of experimental automation by computer programming methods. In studies of visual-manual tracking, eyemovement-yoked visual tracking, and social tracking and feedback control, such a system has been programmed to control experimentally the signal, space, and time feedback compliances between motor response and sensory input, make experimental calibrations, measure response variables, control feedback displays, and perform other experimental operations automatically. A number of research projects have indicated that all aspects of behavior—motorsensory performance, perception, learning, psychophysiological integration, motivation, development and aging—may be investigated by partial automation in terms of the multivariant feedback mechanisms that govern them.