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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

An Emerging Target Paradigm to Evoke Fast Visuomotor Responses on Human Upper Limb Muscles
Published on: August 25, 2020
Intermittent visual information and the multiple time scales of visual motor control of continuous isometric force
Jacob J Sosnoff1, Karl M Newell
1Department of Kinesiology, Pennsylvania State University, 266 Recreation Hall, University Park, PA 16802, USA. jjs388@psu.edu
Abstract:
In an experiment, we examined the effect of intermittency (from 25.6 Hz to 0.2 Hz) of visual information on continuous isometric force production as a function of force level (5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% of maximal voluntary contraction [MVC]). The amount of force variability decreased and the irregularity of force output increased as a function of increased visual intermittency rate. Vision was found to have an influence on the frequency structure of force output up to 12 Hz, and the 25% MVC force level had more high-frequency modulations with higher rates of visual information. The effective use of intermittent visual information is mediated nonlinearly by force level, and there are multiple time scales of visual control (range, approximately 0 - 12 Hz) that are postulated to be a function of both feedback and feedforward control processes.
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