title: Monocular optical constraints on collision control.
abstract: A simulated ball-hitting task was used to explore the optical basis for collision control. Ball speed and size were manipulated in Experiments 1 and 2. Results showed a tendency for participants to respond earlier to slower and larger balls. Early in practice, participants would consistently miss the slowest and largest balls. Experiments 3 and 4 examined performance as a function of the range of speeds. Performance for identical speeds differed depending on whether the speeds were fastest or slowest within a range. Asymmetric transfer between the 2 ranges of speeds showed that those trained with slow speeds were very successful when tested with a faster range of speeds. Those trained with fast speeds did not do as well when tested on slower speeds. The pattern of results across 4 experiments suggests that participants were using optical angle and expansion rate as separate degrees of freedom for solving the collision task.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA.
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Flach
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Dittman
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stanard
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012858:Size Perception; D013028:Space Perception; D013998:Time Perception; D015349:Vision, Monocular