New Efforts Toward Understanding The Sampling Phenomenon In Hand Tracking

Two experiments which are the beginning of a new effort to understand the phenomenon of sampling in hand tracking are described. The first measures subject responses to pulse inputs to test whether sampling is enforced by an input-triggered clock (such as a forced oscillator) or whether the sample period is determined by the time to process each movement, during which no further input is accepted. The second tests whether sampling is dependent on the direction of the target by giving successive steps in the same or opposite directions. It is found that the sampling does not appear to be enforced by a clock, and that the existence of a sampled response and its duration are direction dependent. it is hoped that these and future experiments, combined with results in the physiology literature, will produce a comprehensive model of the sampling mechanism.