Hand position as a variable determining the accuracy of aiming movements.
Two experiments investigated the effect of hand position on the accuracy of short- and long-duration aiming movements in the presence and absence of visual feedback. In Experiment 1 (N = 16) short aiming movements were executed rapidly, which would require them to be predominantly programmed, whereas in Experiment 2(N = 8) these movements were performed slowly enough so that visual feedback, which implies that they were predominantly programmed. However, the long-duration, short-length movements of Experiment 2 were disrupted when visual feedback was removed, which suggests that these movements were being guided by visual feedback. Having the heel of the responding hand in contact with the target platform during the response resulted in greater accuracy than no hand contact for the short-length movements of both experiments. Taken together, these results indicated that hand contact produced greater aiming accuracy than no hand contact for both programmed- and feedback-based movements.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D014796:Visual Perception