Very slow search and reach: failure to maximize expected gain in an eye-hand coordination task.
We examined an eye-hand coordination task where optimal visual search and hand movement strategies were inter-related. Observers were asked to find and touch a target among five distractors on a touch screen. Their reward for touching the target was reduced by an amount proportional to how long they took to locate and reach to it. Coordinating the eye and the hand appropriately would markedly reduce the search-reach time. Using statistical decision theory we derived the sequence of interrelated eye and hand movements that would maximize expected gain and we predicted how hand movements should change as the eye gathered further information about target location. We recorded human observers' eye movements and hand movements and compared them with the optimal strategy that would have maximized expected gain. We found that most observers failed to adopt the optimal search-reach strategy. We analyze and describe the strategies they did adopt.
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America. hang.zhang@nyu.edu
Hang
H
Zhang
Camille
C
Morvan
Louis-Alexandre
LA
Etezad-Heydari
Laurence T
LT
Maloney
D000465:Algorithms; D019295:Computational Biology; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward