Amount and Order of Redundancy as Determinants of Continuous Tracking Performance

Abstract

Previous studies manipulating redundancy in tracking experiments used discrete rather than continuous tracking tasks. A methodology is presented for manipulating redundancy in continuous input tracks in order to compare the influence of redundancy on continuous tracking performance to that found previously using discrete tracking tasks. Three orders of redundancy were introduced in continuous tracks. Within each order of redundancy, five different amounts of redundancy were used by manipulating the sequential probabilities of the tracks’ maximum amplitude values. The analysis of response lags and error data indicated that Ss did not respond as predicted to the conditional probabilities of amplitude heights existing in the tracks, even when the probabilities were relatively high, but rather responded to different aspects of the tracks. These results were interpreted in terms of the unique characteristics of the continuous input and the postulated sampling strategy employed by Ss.