Violations of Fitts' law in a ballistic task.
The authors explored changes in the postural preparation and movement times during jumps into targets of different sizes placed at different distances from the participant. Both movement and preparation times scaled with movement distance. Neither movement nor preparation time showed an effect of target size, although preparation time showed a tendency to increase for smaller targets. These observations show that the classical Fitts' law can be violated in tasks that involve a ballistic component. The data corroborate a hypothesis that Fitts' law originates at the level of movement planning.
Juras
Grzegorz
G
Department of Motor Behavior, the Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education, Katowice, Poland. g.juras@awf.katowice.pl
Slomka
Kajetan
K
Latash
Mark
M
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology