Elsevier

Human Movement Science

Volume 15, Issue 1, February 1996, Pages 1-24
Human Movement Science

Dwell time in reciprocal aiming tasks

https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-9457(95)00041-0Get rights and content

Abstract

This study investigated the nature of the ‘time to reverse direction on the target’ or ‘dwell time’ in reciprocal aiming tasks both in quantitative and qualitative dimensions. In Experiments 1 and 2 it was investigated how dwell time varied as a function of target size and target distance for reciprocal sliding and reciprocal tapping tasks, respectively. Results indicated that the prime determinant of dwell time was target size: The smaller the targets the longer the dwell times. Experiment 3 tested two hypotheses regarding the functional significance of dwell time, the visual feedback processing hypothesis and the motor programming hypothesis, and found the former to be supported. Experiment 4 established that even in the absence of accuracy constraints, dwell time varied as a function of movement speed. This finding was interpreted as being consistent with the movement efficiency hypothesis which relates dwell time to energy constraints. It was tentatively argued that depending on the task constraints dwell time might partly depend on the speed of the movement and partly on processes related to feedback pertaining to the movement just completed.

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