Performance of a skilled motor task in virtual and real environments.

Full Abstract

Three experiments compared the performances of adult participants (three groups of 10) on a perceptuo-motor task in both real world (RW) and virtual environments (VEs). The task involved passing a hoop over a bent wire course, and three versions of the task were used:
a 3-D wire course with no background, a flattened version of the 3-D course (2(1/2)-D course) with no background, and the 2(1/2)-D course with added background to provide spatial context. In all three experiments the participants had to prevent the hoop from touching the wire as they moved it. In the first experiment, the VE condition produced about 18 times more errors than the RW task. The VE 2(1/2)-D task was found to be as difficult as the 3-D, and the 2(1/2)-D with the added background produced more errors than the other two experiments. Taken together, the experiments demonstrate the difficulty of performing fine motor tasks in VEs, a phenomenon that has not been given due attention in many previous studies of motor control in VEs.

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Author information

Author/s: Arnold, Paul (P); Farrell, Martin J (MJ); Pettifer, Steve (S); West, Adrian J (AJ);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, M13 9PL, UK. arnold(-atsign-)fs4.psy.man.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Controlled Clinical Trial; Journal Article

Journal: Ergonomics (Ergonomics), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 45 (issue 5) : pp 348-61

Dates: Created 2002/05/24; Completed 2002/07/03; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12028720, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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