ABSTRACT
In contrast to the skills approach, the dynamic systems approach examines human abilities in controlling or tracking dynamic systems to make them conform with certain time-space trajectories in the face of environmental uncertainty. This chapter introduces the tracking task as an experimental paradigm that will allow the frequency response of human actors to be measured. In a tracking task, the actor’s job is typically to minimize error between the control object and the target track. There are two moving cursors in a pursuit tracking task. One cursor represents the target path. The second cursor represents the controlled object. There are several conventions for characterizing the global quality of performance in tracking tasks. One measure is time on target, or percent time on target. A second measure of tracking performance is the mean error. Whereas classical control theory focuses on system stability and tracking error, there are often additional criteria for good system performance that also demand explicit consideration.
