Suboptimal online control of aiming movements in virtual contexts

We determined whether uncertainty about the location of one's hand in virtual environments limits the efficacy of online control processes. In the Non-aligned and Aligned conditions, the participant's hand was represented by a cursor on a vertical or horizontal display, respectively. In the Natural condition, participants saw their hand. During an acquisition phase, visual feedback was either permitted or not during movement execution. To test the hypothesis (Norris et al. 2001) that reliance on visual feedback increases as the task becomes less natural (Natural < Aligned < Non-aligned), following acquisition, participants performed a transfer phase without visual feedback. During acquisition in both visual feedback conditions, movement endpoint variability increased as the task became less natural. This suggests that the orientation of the display and the representation of one's hand by a cursor introduced uncertainty about its location, which limits the efficacy of online control processes. In contradiction with the hypothesis of Norris et al. (2001), withdrawing visual feedback in transfer had a larger deleterious effect on movement accuracy as the task became less natural. This suggests that the CNS increases the weight attributed to the input that can be processed without first having to be transformed.