Studying the timescale of perceptual-motor (re)calibration following a change in visual display gain

Experiencing a non-1:1 mapping between perception and action in everyday life is not common. It could be considered as a problem for our perceptual-motor system because of the need to adapt our goal-directed movement to different gains between movement and task spaces. In the Human Computer Interface domain, the main example of such a situation consists in switching from one operating system to another which requires to adapt our movement to different Control Display gains. The aim of the study was to characterize the perceptual-motor calibration process following a sudden change in control display gain. Sixteen participants manipulated a mouse computer to move a cursor on the screen. The discrete aiming task consisted on reaching the target from a starting target position as fast and as accurately as possible. Our methodology consisted in suddenly manipulating the gain between both spaces following a three-step adaptation methodology (baseline condition followed by a perturbation and return to baseline condition). Results demonstrated that not only participants produce adaptive behavior following several types of perturbations, but they were also able to do it at a very short timescale. As the calibration process described in the present study may play a significant role in the acquisition of accurate perceptual-motor skills involving the use of devices that augment human fine motor capabilities (e.g., telesurgery, mouse and joystick), we conclude that this study could have important implications in the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) as well as in the domain Human Equipment Interaction.