Human Movement Science 9 (1990) 531-548 North-Holland

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INTERMITI-ENT VISUAL PICKUP AND GOAL DIRECTED MOVEMENT: A REVIEW * Digby ELLIOTT
M&faster University, Hamilton, Canada

Elliott, D., 1990. Intermittent visual pickup and goal directed movement: A review. Human Movement Science 9, 531-548.

Locomotion and manual aiming studies suggest that a brief visual representation may be adequate to guide movement when continuous visual contact with the environment is prevented. Evidence is presented to suggest that this representation has many of the same characteristics as, what has traditionally been termed, iconic memory. The representation allows and individual to continuously control a movement, while picking up visual information intermittently.

Introduction Since the late 1800s most closed-loop models of movement control have included some type of intermittent error correction mechanism/process designed to reduced any discrepancy between the movement goal and the ongoing movement (Woodworth 1899). Crossman and Goodeve (1963/1983) and Keele (1968) for example, proposed that single target-aiming movements are in fact composed of a series of submovements. Each submovement is based on visual information, and designed to reduce the error inherent in the previous submovement. Since each submovement is of approximately the same duration and relative accuracy, longer duration movements are believed to be composed of more submovements thus explaining the well-known
* This paper was written while I was on research leave at Simon Fraser University in Bumaby, B.C. I would like to acknowledge the support of the School of Kinesiology at Simon Fraser, as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Authors address: D. Elliott, Motor Behaviour Laboratory, School of Physical Education, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4Kl. 0167-9457/90/$03.50 0 1990 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

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relationship between movement time and movement accuracy (Fitts 1954; Fitts and Peterson 1964). An alternative to this multiple submovement model of manual aiming has been a single-correction model (Beggs and Howarth 1970; Carlton 1979; Howarth et al. 1971). As the name implies a single feedback-based error-reducing correction is made as the limb approaches the target. Since it takes a finite amount of time for this correction to occur, movements of a longer duration have the advantage of being closer to the target when the discrete adjustment is initiated. Thus, it is proximity to the target at the time of the correction that constrains movement accuracy (Fitts 1954; Fitts and Peterson 1964) rather than the number of corrections. In either case these closed-loop explanations of manual aiming accuracy view limb control as a discrete time-limited process. As well, most investigators have emphasized the importance of visual information in the error reduction process (Beggs and Howarth 1972; Carlton 1979; Elliott and Allard 1985; Keele 1968, 1981; Keele and Posner 1968; Woodworth 1899; Zelaznik et al. 1983). While movement adjustments have typically been considered discrete, the pick-up of visual information upon which the adjustments are based has been assumed to be continuous. Although continuous visual pickup has usually been possible in laboratory studies examining manual aiming, there are many daily living activities in which the visual monitoring of movement is intermittent. To control movement in many work and recreational activities for example, we must deal with visual information from multiple sources. In a complex task such as city driving, steering, braking and gearchanging movements depend on visual information from all directions, both near and far, as well as from the instrument panel. The driver must sample information from various areas of the visual environment (e.g., the rear view mirror), and combine sources of information to control hand, foot, head and eye movements. In spite of these demands, an experienced driver can also use vision to find a radio station, to light a cigarette or to evaluate the attractiveness of a pedestrian. Brief visual samples seem to be sufficient for relatively error-free performance.
In the typical manual aiming experiments there has been a single subjects are permitted to fixate prior to movement initiation. target per trial which the

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Even simple manual and locomotor tasks performed in a stable environment involve combining multiple visual samples. When one negotiates a winding path while jogging on irregular terrain or serves mashed potatoes onto a plate while scanning the table for gravy, smooth continuous movements proceed from discrete visual samples. * If visual sampling is intermittent, it is possible that some sort of representation of each visual sample is formed, so that between-sample information can be combined in order to adequately plan and execute the appropriate action. Thus, while visual information is sampled intermittently, it may be used continuously in the control of movement (Thomson 1980, 1983). Recently, there have been a number of attempts to determine if intermittent visual pickup is sufficient for the precise control of goal target-directed locomotion (e.g. Elliott 1986, 1987; Laurent and Thomson 1988; Thomson 1983) and manual aiming (e.g., Elliott 1988; Elliott and Madalena 1987). In this paper I review research from these two areas and discuss the implications of this work for models of intermittent visual pickup and movement control in a stable environment.

Walking experiments Perhaps the most influential research on the intermittent visual control of locomotion has been Thomsons (1980, 1983) work on the visual control of locomotion. In a series of experiments Thomson (1983) had subjects walk to targets anywhere from 3 to 21 m away, both with and without vision. In an initial experiment he found that accuracy and consistency in the direction of the walking was as good in an eyes-closed situation as it was with full vision, but only if the distance walked did not exceed 9 m. Thomson (1983) hypothesized that increased errors in walking to more distant targets was due to either a perceptual limitation related to near and far space, or to a temporal decay of internalized visual information. The latter is simply due to the fact that it takes more time to walk to more distant targets. To test these rival hypotheses Thomson conducted an experiment in which he introduced brief no-vision delays before subjects walked to
* By sample, I refer to all the information individual chooses to attend. available in a single fixation regardless of what the

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the targets. Thus, subjects walked to targets 3, 6, 9, and 12 m away either immediately after closing their eyes or after no vision delays of 2 or 4 s. The findings in this experiment supported the temporal decay hypothesis. That is, in the O-s delay situation performance deteriorated at 12 m, while in the 2- and 4-s delay conditions it deteriorated at 9 m and 6 m, respectively. In terms of total, no-vision time (delay plus walking time), if subjects arrived in the target area in less than 8 s their walking was reasonably accurate with a rapid reduction in accuracy/consistency thereafter. Thus, the experiment provided evidence for an internal representation persisting for up to 8 s that was used to guide walking in the absence of direct visual contact with the environment. In support of this idea Thomson (1983: exp. 3) demonstrated that subjects were able to run to far away targets both accurately and consistently as long as they reached the target area within the critical 8-s period. One exception to this finding was that for very short distances (5 m and less) temporal factors were not important since subjects were equally accurate/consistent in no-vision conditions of greater than and less than 8 s. Thus, a more stable representation of target information may be available for targets within a 5-m range, while for more distant targets the representation decays rapidly after approximately 8 s. In order to determine the nature of this second type of representation, Thomson (1983) conducted an experiment in which the opportunity for movement planning before visual occlusion was eliminated. He had subjects close their eyes and begin walking to a target 10 m away. At different distances from the target subjects were required to stop and throw a beanbag the remainder of the distance. Subjects performed this walking and throwing task both with and without a no-vision delay. The idea was that since subjects did not know when they would be stopped, it was impossible for them to organize and remember a specific throwing movement prior to vision being eliminated. Thus, the accuracy/consistency advantages found in the no-delay conditions were interpreted to mean that subjects remembered the general environmental layout as opposed to a specific motor program. The representation then, was identified as visual. While Thomsons (1983) findings are intriguing they have not been replicated (Elliott 1986, 1987; Steenhuis and Goodale 1988). I (Elliott 1986) suggested that part of the problem may be related to the

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procedures Thomson used to measure and analyze walking error. Rather than calculating a mean (constant error) and standard deviation (variable error) for each subject for each condition to examine accuracy and consistency, Thomson (1983) pooled errors across subjects and trials, and calculated one standard deviation (variance) for each condition. Variances for each condition were then used to determine F ratios for homogeneity of variance (Elliott 1986: 389). This method of pooling within-subject and between-subject variability makes it impossible to determine if differences in consistency between conditions are due to individual subjects becoming more variable (i.e., increased variable error) or constant error differences between subjects becoming more pronounced. An initial experiment (Elliott 1986) in which both delay (0, 2 and 4 s) and distance (3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 m) were manipulated found that variable error in the direction of the movement (within-subject standard deviations) was uninfluenced by delay and simply increased with the distance walked. Moreover in a second experiment it was demonstrated that vision throughout the task reduced variability regardless of the distance walked. As well, constant error results in the two experiments yielded no evidence for Thomsons critical 8-s representation of the movement environment. Based on the findings of these two studies I suggested that continuous visual information may be necessary for the precise control of locomotion (Elliott 1986). In a reaction to my paper (Elliott 1986), Thomson (1986) suggested that my failure to replicate his results may have been due to methodological differences related to prior practice and walking speed. Specifically, Thomson (1986) suggested that the delay effect was absent in my experiments, because subjects did not receive prior practice with feedback at blind walking. Thomsons (1986: 393) point was that practice with feedback may be vital to instilling a sense of confidence in subjects who otherwise are unwilling to walk in an unhesitating manner. In order to determine if practice and/or walking speed differences were responsible for the absence of a delay effect, I (Elliott 1987) conducted an experiment in which prior practice (practice with feedback, practice without feedback) and walking speed (normal, fast) were manipulated along with delay (0, 2 and 4 s) and distance (4, 8 and 12 m). As in the earlier work (Elliott 1986) only distance affected variability in the direction of the movement. Thus, again no support was found for an 8-s representation of the movement environment.

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Other researchers examining locomotion with the no-vision delay paradigm have generally failed to find a time to target effect. For example, Steenhuis and Goodale (1986) found that target-directed locomotion was less accurate when vision was occluded for target distances greater than 3 m. In the no-vision conditions, they found that distance and not elapsed time to target affected walking accuracy. This was true for both accuracy (constant error) and consistency (variable error) with subjects tending to undershoot more distant targets (see also Steenhuis and Goodale 1988: exp. 1). While no evidence was found for Thomsons 8-s representation of the movement environment, Steenhuis and Goodale (1988) showed that subjects may use a longer lasting. less precise representation to guide their walking. Specifically Steenhuis and Goodale (1988): exp. 2) found variable error increased for both distance and delay when the no-vision delay was extended to 30 s. This finding along with the lack of delay effect for briefer no-vision periods suggested to Steenhuis and Goodale (1988) that subjects may employ a longer lasting less precise representation to guide locomotion. Presumably, this representation decays quite slowly. Other evidence on the visual control of locomotion has been reported by Corlett and associates (Corlett 1986; Corlett and Patla 1987; Corlett et al. 1985). In a study designed to examine developmental aspects of vision and locomotion Corlett et a1.(1985) and children and adults walk with their eyes closed to a target 5 m away. Employing an independent groups design Corlett et al. manipulated walking delay as well as the time subjects had to view the target prior to the no-vision walking delay. Constant error results indicated that while delay and view time had no impact on adults, children undershot the target more with increasing delay. As well, children performed with greater accuracy (less undershooting) in the longer view time conditions. Corlett et al. did not examine variable error. In experiments in which the presence of environmental cues other than the target was manipulated, Corlett (1986) found that visual landmarks available before blind walking generally improve locomotor distance estimation in adults. This finding highlights the importance of prior visual information for the organization and/or execution of blind walking movements. In terms of Thomsons (1980, 1983) proposal regarding intermittent visual sampling and continuous control, recent studies with adults

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(Elliott 1987; Steenhuis and Goodale 1986, 1988) provide little support for an 8-s visual representation of the environment that is an adequate substitute for direct visual contact. Work by Steenhuis and Goodale (1988), however, provides evidence for a longer lasting less precise representation. As well, recent research conducted by Laurent and Thomson (1988) and Assaiante et al. (1989) indicate that a very brief spatial representation may be useful for movement control under some circumstances. Laurent and Thomson (1988) had subjects walk to targets approximately 9 m away, attempting to step on the target with a predetermined foot. There were four visual conditions. After a brief visual preview subjects either had full vision, no vision or several 300-ms visual snapshots that were provided either in-phase or out-of-phase. For the in-phase vision condition, the 300-ms sample was provided every time the subjects designated target foot hit the ground, while the out-ofphase condition involved providing vision when the target foot was in the swing portion of the step. The other factor manipulated by Laurent and Thomson was termed regulation. Based on pre-experiment measures of walking, the target was positioned so that subjects would hit it (assuming they kept stride length constant) with the target foot with no gait regulation or it was positioned 40 cm short or long of this position. In the latter two conditions it was assumed that some adjustment in stride would be required in order for a subject to hit the target with the designated or target foot. The two intermittent visual conditions did not differ from the full vision condition in accuracy or consistency. When performing without vision, subjects were more variable and undershot more than in the other 3 conditions. These latter findings exist in spite of the fact that it took less than 8 s to reach the target (cf. Thomson 1983). Thus, Laurent and Thomsons accuracy findings indicate that while some sort of representation may guide walking when vision is occluded, its duration is something less than previous proposals (Thomson 1983, 1986). Although walking error did not vary across the three regulation conditions, analyses of step length and step length variability demonstrated that subjects were less consistent in their last few steps when visual snapshots were provided out of phase than when vision was continuously available or available during ground contact. This was true for both the long and short adjustment conditions, but not in the no-regulation condition. For the no-vision conditions step length was

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more variable for all three regulation conditions. Thus well-coordinated locomotion depends not only on the length of time that vision is available, but also when in the step cycle it is available. The type of visual sample necessary for visually guided locomotion has been examined in greater detail by Assaiante et al. (1989). They attempted to examine various components of locomotion using two different locomotor tasks. Specifically, to understand the visual control of balance they had subjects walking on a narrow beam, while subjectss ability to control foot placement was studied by having them walk on a horizontal .ladder. Visual information was manipulated by providing subjects with flashes of light of varying duration in an otherwise dark room. By manipulating flash duration and frequency, Assaiante et al. sought to determine what type of visual sample was sufficient for maintaining equilibrium and controlling foot placement. Assaiante et al. had subjects cover a 7-m distance on both the beam and ladder as rapidly as possible under conditions of full vision, darkness and stroboscopic and intermittent illumination. The stroboscopic conditions consisted of very brief flashes of light at frequencies of 1, 2, 3, 4.5 and 12 Hz, while the intermittent manipulation involved changing frequency and flash duration together so that the total time for which light was provided was held constant at 25% of the total duration. Thus, for the intermittent light conditions the frequency and flash durations were 1 Hz and 250 ms, 12 Hz and 125 ms, 3 Hz and 83 ms, 6 Hz and 42 ms, 9 Hz and 28 ms, and 12 Hz and 21 ms. The idea was that for the stroboscopic conditions, and perhaps higher frequency intermittent lighting conditions,only static visual information would be available in a sample. For lower frequency intermittent conditions, however, the longer flash durations provided the opportunity for the accumulation of more dynamic visual information. The most dramatic finding in this experiment was how well the subjects performed when any type of visual sample was available compared to the total darkness condition. Moreover, walking speed increased with sample frequency for both stroboscopic and intermittent light conditions on both the beam and the ladder. The difference in walking speed between the two 12-Hz conditions and normal lighting were minimal suggesting that static visual snapshots may be sufficient for the control of both balance and foot placement (cf. Lee et al. 1982). At least in these two locomotor tasks then, continuous visual pickup may not be necessary. In contrast to Thomsons (1983) proposals

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however, if a representation is being used to guide locomotion, it is probably a very short-lived representation, since speed differences between l- and 12-Hz conditions were considerable even when the absolute time with vision available was equivalent (intermittent lighting arrangement). In summary then, while the walking studies provide little evidence for the precise 8-s representation proposed by Thomson (1983), brief but frequent static displays of the movement environment appear adequate for locomotor control, at least in some situations (Assainte et al. 1989). Since the frequency of the snapshots appear to be more important than their duration, subjects may be.using a very short-lived representation (between 100 ms and 1000 ms) of the movement environment to replace continuous visual contact with the environment. In locomotion especially, it is probably important to update this representation frequently, since the visual receptors move with the rest of the body, thus changing the relative position of visual targets. Although this is normally not the case with manual aiming, targetpointing studies from our laboratory also suggest that intermittent, but frequent visual pickup can replace continuous visual monitoring. Although frequent samples may help a subject by updating limb position, our work indicates that the main role of vision is to provide information about the position of the target object.

Manual aiming experiments At about the same time that we were conducting our initial locomotion studies (Elliott 1986), we (Elliott and Madalena 1987) introduced Thomsons (1980, 1983) no-vision delay paradigm to the study of rapid, single aiming movements (Fitts and Peterson 1964). We (Elliott and Madalena 1987) felt there were two advantages of using the delay paradigm with aiming movements. First, the majority of the research designed to examine the control of movement and the timing of visual pickup has employed a manual aiming task (Beggs and Howarth 1970; Carlton 1981; Elliott and Allard 1985; Keele and Posner 1968; Roy and Elliott 1986; Smith and Bowen 1980; Woodworth 1899; Zelaznik et al. 1983). As well, with the walking paradigm there is an intrinsic confounding of target distance and time to reach the target while with pointing, the time between movement initiation and target acquisition

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is relatively short, thus circumventing the movement time problem (Elliott and Madalena 1987). Therefore a target-pointing task seemed ideal for examining both rapid visual sampling, and the brief maintenance of information about the movement environment. In our first experiment, we (Elliott and Madalena 1987) had subjects point to targets a short distance away (25 or 35 cm) in movement times either of 200-300 ms or 400-500 ms. Subjects performed in five different visual conditions. As is typical in experiments examining the role of vision in manual aiming (e.g., Keele and Posner 1968), subjects pointed with full vision and in a condition in which the room lights were extinguished upon movement initiation. In order to examine the usefulness and longevity of premovement sources of visual information, we included conditions in which the room lights were extinguished 2, 5 and 10 s prior to the initiation of the movement. In these conditions subjects were given as much time as they needed to encode the position of the particular target, the lights were turned off and finally the experimenter signalled the subject when the no-vision delay interval was complete. In all the no-vision conditions, the room lights came back on when the movement was completed. Thus, the procedures were very similar to those used in the walking studies (previously cited) except that subjects were able to view the movement error at the completion of every trial. Although standard vision-no-vision findings were typical (e.g., Elliott and Allard 1985; Keele and Posner 1968), we (Elliott and Madalena 1987) were surprised to find a large increase in error when subjects were required to wait as little as 2 s in the dark prior to movement initiation. Based on these results, we suggested that some sort of representation of the environment, useful for the visual control of movement, persists for a brief period of time (-c 2 s) after visual occlusion (Elliott and Madalena 1987: 547). For slow movements (400-500 ms), there appeared to be a further deterioration in targetpointing accuracy with a 10-s target-pointing delay. In our work to that point this was our first evidence for anything resembling Thomsons (1983) 8-s spatial representation. Our conclusion was that the effect of the 2-s delay in this initial experiment was due to the deterioration of the information about the movement environment. We further hypothesized that the location of the target was the most important information lost from the representation. To test this hypothesis we attempted to eliminate the delay effect

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by providing information about target position in the various no-vision conditions (Elliott and Madalena 1987: exp. 3). This experiment was identical to the first except that a small dot of phosphorescent paint served as the target, so that information about target location was available even when all other visual information was eliminated (i.e., room lights extinguished). The effect of providing this target information was the virtual elimination of the delay effect, suggesting that the information lost over the delay in the initial experiment was specific information about the position of the target. Together these two experiments fit well in the context of traditional closed-loop explanations of the speed and accuracy of limb movements. Both intermittent (Crossman and Goodeve 1963/1983; Keele 1968) and single correction (Carlton 1979; Howarth et al. 1971) models of limb control posit that target-pointing error for an ongoing movement is detected and reduced by comparing the relative positions of the moving limb and the target in space. While limb position can be determined visually, kinesthetically or through feedforward sources of information, target position can only be determined visually, making visual information about target position extremely important if feedback-based error reduction is to occur (Stubbs 1976). One of the important aspects of our findings is that they allow us to reconcile logical arguments with reports that visual target information is not important (Carlton 1981). In a study designed to determine the relative importance of visual limb and target information in an aiming task, Carlton (1981) used phosphorescent tape to independently manipulate these sources of information. Thus he had subjects move to a target with full vision, vision of both the target and stylus, vision of the stylus only, vision of the target only and no vision. Contrary to the logic of various closedloop error reduction models he found that vision of the stylus improved movement accuracy, while vision of the target did not. Based on our no-vision delay findings (Elliott and Madalena 1987), we have suggested that Carltons failure to find an influence of target on aiming accuracy was the result of target information being available to the subject even when the target was not physically present during targetpointing (Elliott 1988: 67). That is, the physical presence of a target in Carltons (1981) experiment was redundant with a visual representation of target position that can be used to guide pointing. In terms of visual closed-loop models of movement control it would appear that while

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target information is important (Stubbs 1976) the location of the target can be determined from either direct visual input or from a short-lived visual representation of the environment in situations in which vision is occluded. In recent work (Elliott 1988), I provided further support for the notion that target information available in a representation can serve as a short-term substitute for direct visual contact with the environment. The manipulation of both target and stylus information (Carlton 1981), in the context of a delay paradigm (Elliott and Madalena 1987), resulted in some use of stylus information when target information was available either directly or indirectly (i.e., a representation). Further, the information about the position of the limb in space was of no consequence when target information was given the opportunity to decay (Elliott 1988: exp. 1, day 1) in movement delay conditions of 2 s or greater. Again this is consistent with visual error reduction models of limb control, since movement error can only be determined relative to the position of the target in space. Our manual pointing studies (Elliott 1988; Elliott and Madalena 1987) using a no-vision movement delay paradigm have provided evidence for a short-lived representation of the movement environment ( < 2 s) that is useful for movement control when direct visual contact with the environment is prevented. Since this representation is useful for movement control when it provides accurate information about the locations of objects in the environment, it follows that the representation will be detrimental to aiming performance if it provides inaccurate or imprecise information. To test this prediction we (Elliott et al., in press) conducted an experiment using a lateral displacing prism in an attempt to reverse the direction of our 2-s target-pointing delay effect. Employing the same task as used in our other aiming work, subjects completed 64 trials moving to a target 35 cm away in a movement time range of 400-500 ms. These trials were conducted with full vision and were designed to allow the subjects to develop a visual-motor representation for the movement. Following practice, prism goggles were introduced along with the various visual manipulations. The vision conditions were essentially those used in our other work (i.e., full vision and 0-, 2-, 10-s delays). The major difference in this study was that the experimenter adjusted the prism base on the goggles worn by the subject just prior to each trial so that subjects were always uncertain about the direction of visual displacement. The hypothesis was that the

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prism would induce movement error to the extent that the inaccurate information about target position was used to guide the movement. As predicted, the most movement errors occurred in the O-s delay no-vision condition. This was likely because an inaccurate representation (prism-induced) of the targets position was used to guide the pointing movement (Elliott and Allard 1985). The error was much less after a 2-s delay and further reduced after an additional 8 s, presumably because the representation has had an opportunity to decay. In the absence of a precise visual representation of the targets position, subjects depend more on the motor representation developed during practice. In the lights-on situation, error was intermediate because although inaccurate information about target position is continually present, 450-ms movements provide subjects with plenty of time to compare visual limb and target positions and make the appropriate on-line adjustments. As a result of our ability to reverse the delay effect with a visual manipulation, we (Elliott et al., in press) were more confident that the representation was visual in nature, as opposed to motor for example. While there appear to be changes in performance that occur after a 2-s no-vision delay (e.g., prism study, Elliott and Madalena 1987, slow movement in experiment l), the profound changes in target-pointing accuracy that take place with only a 2-s delay suggest that some type of visual sensory memory (Sperling 1960) might be involved. In two studies designed to examine this possibility, we combined some of the methods used to study visual persistence/iconic memory (Neisser 1967) with our target-pointing procedures (Elliott et al., in press). To determine if iconic memory was involved we conducted an experiment to assess whether or not the representation was susceptible to a visual pattern mask. We (Elliott et al., in press) used slide projectors to briefly present, and sometimes mask, visual targets. The target was a small + that could appear in a number of locations, while the masking slide was composed of horizontal, vertical and diagonal black lines. The target was presented for 150 ms and on half the trial blocks it was followed immediately by a 200-ms mask. Even though subjects reaction time and movement time averaged 352 ms and 584 ms, respectively (i.e., more than 900 ms to reach the target area), subjects still pointed more accurately in the no-mask condition. This finding indicated that some type of useful information persisted after target off-set, and at least some of this information was disrupted by the presence of a target mask.

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Although the relatively long reaction times and movement times inherent in an aiming task make the traditional iconic memory paradigm (Sperling 1960) less than ideal for the study of visual persistence and movement, we (Elliott et al., in press) decided that it might be useful to examine manual aiming using a variation of Sperlings (1960) partial report procedure. Once again, a slide projector was used to present targets, this time at one random position in each of three rows (top, middle, bottom). The target slide was presented for 60 ms. At various intervals (0, 200, 400, 600, 800 or 1000 ms), after target onset (stimulus onset asynchronies, SOA), a high, medium or low pitch tone sounded to designate the target for that trial. The idea was that at short SOAs subjects would still have visual target information available (physically or a visual analog) when the target was specified, but at long SOAs target information would have decayed. This latter situation would presumably make specific movement planning less precise resulting in greater movement error. In a control condition subjects were precued as to the target for that trial, so that the tone provided subjects with only the signal to point. Our purpose was to determine the role of the representation in movement planning. As well, we hoped to gain some indication of the duration of the representation. While we were successful in demonstrating a deterioration in performance with SOA when the tone specified the target, the deterioration in accuracy is more continuous than discrete. Thus, while we have further evidence for the existence of a short-lived representation of the movement environment useful for the organization and control of movement, the exact duration of the representation is less clear.

Conclusions and future directions While direct visual contact with the movement environment provides the conditions necessary for the most precise movement control, evidence from both locomotor and manual aiming studies suggests that a brief representation of the movement environment can sometimes serve as a short-term substitute for direct, continuous visual pickup. The exact duration of this representation is less clear. Certainly the manual aiming (Elliott 1988; Elliott and Madalena 1987) studies would indicate that a great deal of information about the movement environment disappears in the first 2 s of visual occlusion. From the walking studies

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(Assaiante et al. 1989), it would appear that the majority of this decay occurs between 80 ms and 500 ms. Based on these time data, as well as the apparent inability of subjects to maintain this information even when the attentional demands of the task are minimal, we (Elliott et al., in press) have suggested that the representation in question may have some of the characteristics associated with what has been referred to as iconic memory (Neisser 1967). Specifically, the representation appears to be visual, short-lived, preattentive and rather literal. In terms of movement, this representation may be used to guide a limb or the body to a stationary target or target area when direct visual contact with the environment is not possible. The representation can also be used for premovement organization and planning. While locomotion and manual aiming studies suggest that dependence on this representation leads to slightly less precise movement than direct visual contact with the environment, movement errors increase enormously if the representation has had time to decay. Thus, the representation may be most effective for tasks in which there is room for some margin of error, or error information can be signalled in some other way (e.g., kinesthetically). If a representation can replace direct visual contact with the environment, continuous visual pickup may not be necessary for reasonably precise motor control. Since our evidence suggests that the representation is very brief, intermittent visual sampling needs to be quite frequent. In locomotion, frequency may be more important, since the visual receptors and therefore the relative position of the target to. the body changes with movement. With respect to manual aiming, intermittent visual sampling does not necessarily require intermittent movement control of the type proposed by Keele (1968, 1981) and others (Carlton 1981; Crossman and Goodeve 1983; Howarth et al. 1971). If in fact the representation provides some type of visual continuity, it may allow for a gradual adjustment in movement forces involved in the driving and braking of limb movements. Thus, as Thomson (1983) has suggested, continuous movement control may result from intermittent visual pickup. One course to follow with the aiming studies is to examine limb trajectories in various visual conditions, including conditions in which a target location is masked and/or a no-vision premovement delay is introduced. At present we are preparing to conduct these studies using a three-dimensional digitizing system (WATSMART). In preliminary

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work (Elliott et al. 1989) in which we manipulated vision of the limb and target, we have found large accuracy difference between vision conditions without finding differences in the number of discrete adjustments. Another line of research is concerned with refining our description of the visual representation. Since the functional utility of the representation (see Haber (1963) for a discussion on the usefulness of the icon) may depend on whether it is retinotopic or spatiotopic, we plan to incorporate some of the methods used in letter identification tasks into a target-aiming paradigm. Specifically, targets will be presented tachistocopically, an eye movement induced, and then stimuli designed to mask either the retinal or spatial location of the target will be presented (see McRae et al. 1987). Certainly a more central representation (i.e., spatiotopic) has the potential to be of greater utility in a movement situation in which saccadic eye movements are made in order to sample different areas of the movement environment. A spatiotopic representation of a prior fixation would allow an individual to combine between saccade spatial information without taking into consideration the position of the head and eyes at the time the representation was formed. Presumably this form of representation would aid an individual in directing a movement to a previously fixated object during a saccade to another portion of the visual environment. In any event the functional utility of our proposed representation will not be appreciated until experiments are conducted in more dynamic visual situations. Fortunately the technology has been developed to examine this phenomenon outside of the laboratory (e.g., Milgram 1987). In summary then, I propose that a brief visual representation of the movement environment can be used to prepare and guide locomotion and manual aiming when direct visual contact with the environment is either prevented or not possible. While intermittent information pickup may be sufficient for reasonably precise movement control, that control could be either discrete or continuous. At present we are attempting to resolve this issue by examining the kinematics of manual aiming movements under various visual conditions. This work, along with research designed to refine our description of the proposed representation (e.g., visual persistence vs. informational persistence, retinotopic vs. spatiotopic), should give us some insight into the functional significance of the phenomenon outside of the laboratory.

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