ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the generalizability of Fitts’ law to dyadic cooperative aiming. One member of the dyad controlled the motion of a pointer and the other member controlled that of the target, with target width manipulated so as to explore a broad range of aiming difficulties. The chapter discusses a non-interactive, single-actor aiming task with stationary targets. In non-interactive aiming, the target’s behavior is independent of the actor’s movement and hence the aiming task can be said to involve a single actor. In interactive aiming, in contrast, the actor’s approach may elicit feedback reactions on the part of the target, due to some device or another actor. Moreover, little performance change was observed in participants when the aiming task became interactive. In sum, the chronometric and the kinematic results of this experiment converge to suggest that common mechanisms might operate in non-interactive and interactive aiming, an outcome liable to represent an interesting challenge to current explanations of Fitts’ law.
