Bimanual Fitts’ tasks: Kelso, Southard, and Goodman, 1979 revisited

Abstract

The experiment was designed to replicate and extend to an integrated feedback condition the pattern of movement time results found by Kelso et al. (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 5:229-238, 1979a, Science 204:1029-1031, 1979b) where the simultaneous movement of one hand to a low ID target and the other to a higher ID target indicated "a tight coordinate coupling between the hands" (p. 229). In the present experiment, a control group was provided feedback that depicted the independent movement of the two limbs under low and higher indexes of difficulty (ID). A Lissajous group was provided integrated feedback in the form of a Lissajous plot. The results indicated a pattern of results for the control and Lissajous groups similar to that found by Kelso et al. for one and two-limb movements to the same difficulty targets. The control group also replicated the finding for two-limb movements to mixed ID tasks. However, the Lissajous group simultaneously produced disparate movement in the mixed target conditions. The results are consistent with recent findings indicating that when provided salient integrated feedback participants can effectively produce disparate movements of the two limbs.