Do Perceptual Instructions Lead to Enhanced Performance Relative to Behavioral Instructions?
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Updated: Feb 24, 2026

Development of a Gaze-Contingent Display Framework Designed for Perceptual and Oculomotor Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
Published on: April 11, 2025
Carla Brown-Ojeda1, Warren Mansell1
1a School of Health Sciences , University of Manchester , United Kingdom.
Abstract:
As people we commonly instruct people in terms of physical actions to carry out to perform any task. However, according to perceptual control theory (Powers, 1973 ), human action serves to control perception. Using a drawing task, it was hypothesized that instructions describing the perceivable effects of the movement would result in greater accuracy of image drawing than those describing the movement. Participants were asked to draw images using different instructions; describing the expected perceptions and describing the movements. As predicted, it was found that describing the perceptual outcome of the task led to significantly more accurate drawings than describing the movements did. This highlights the importance of instructions based on desired perceptions when precise execution of a skill is necessary.
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