The development of pursuit tracking skills

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Motor Control
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Visual-motor skills like pursuit tracking are crucial for operator performance.
• Traditional metrics such as tracking error and autonomic measures (heart rate) have limitations in assessing skill development.
• Emotional tension can significantly impact performance in tracking tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the development of visual-motor pursuit tracking skills.
• To evaluate grip strength as a sensitive indicator of skill level and emotional tension.
• To introduce a novel method for assessing operator performance reliability.

Main Methods:

• Development of a specialized device to convert grip strength into an electrical signal for analysis.
• Measurement of tracking error, heart rate, and grip strength during a pursuit tracking task.
• Computation of the ratio of grip strength to tracking error to estimate "physiological cost".

Main Results:

• Grip strength demonstrated higher sensitivity in reflecting skill development and level compared to tracking error stabilization and autonomic measures.
• The ratio of grip strength to tracking error provided a reliable estimation of "physiological cost" and operator performance.
• The developed grip strength measurement device can be integrated into control systems for continuous, non-interfering diagnostics.

Conclusions:

• Grip strength is a superior psychophysiological indicator for assessing visual-motor skill development and operator performance.
• The "physiological cost" derived from grip strength and tracking error offers a robust measure of performance reliability.
• The novel device enables continuous, unobtrusive monitoring of operator status in real-time systems.