Misjudgment of direction contributes to curvature in movements toward haptically defined targets

Abstract

The trajectories of arm movements toward visually defined targets are curved, even if participants try to move in a straight line. A factor contributing to this curvature may be that participants systematically misjudge the direction to the target, and try to achieve a straight path by always moving in the perceived direction of the target. If so, the relation between perception of direction and initial movement direction should not only be present for movements toward visually defined targets, but also when making movements toward haptically defined targets. To test whether this is so, we compared errors in the initial movement direction when moving as straight as possible toward haptically defined targets with errors in a pointer setting task toward the same targets. We found a modest correlation between perception of direction and initial movement direction for movements toward haptically defined targets. The amount of correlation depended on the geometry of the task.