A comparison of visual and kinesthetic-tactual displays for compensatory tracking

Research on manual tracking with a kinesthetic-tactual (KT) display suggests that under certain conditions it can be an effective alternative or supplement to visual displays. In order to better understand how KT tracking compares with visual tracking, both a critical tracking and a stationary single-axis tracking task were conducted with and without velocity quickening. In the critical tracking tasks, the visual displays were superior; however, the quickened KT display was approximately equal to the unquickened visual display. In stationary tracking tasks, subjects adopted lag equalization with the quickened KT and visual displays, and mean-squared error scores were approximately equal. With the unquickened displays, subjects adopted lag-lead equalization, and the visual displays were superior.