Independent Development of Imagination and Perception of Fitts' Law in Late Childhood and Adolescence

ABSTRACT

Recent neurophysiological and behavioral research suggests perception-action systems are tightly coupled. Accordingly, Fitts' law has been observed when individuals execute, perceive, and imagine actions. Developmental research has found that (a) children demonstrate Fitts' law in imagined actions and (b) imagined movement time (MT) becomes closer to actual MT as age increases. However, action execution, imagination, and perception have yet to be assessed together in children. The authors investigated how imagined and perceived MTs related to actual MTs in children and adolescents. It was found that imagined MTs were longer than execution MTs were. Perception MTs were lower than execution MTs for children and more consistent with execution MTs for adolescents. These results suggest potential mechanistic differences in action imagination and perception.

Keywords:

• development
• mental chronometry
• motor imagery
• perception

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation to Timothy N. Welsh.