Fitts's Law violation and motor imagery: are imagined movements truthful or lawful?

Petre V. Radulescu, Jos J. Adam, Martin H. Fischer, Jay Pratt

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    23 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Fitts's Law for the timing of targeted movements states that, when target width is held constant, movement time (MT) will increase as the travelled distance increases. Even imagined movements, mentally simulated actions without actual actions, obey Fitts's Law. Recently, a violation of Fitts's Law has been reported; when targets occur in a structured array, MT to the farthest target is shorter than that predicted by Fitts's Law. We conducted two experiments to determine if the violation also occurs for imagined movements. Results showed a close correspondence between real and imaginary MTs across target locations, including the Fitts's violation for the farthest target. We conclude that the violation of Fitts's Law occurs in motor imagery and that the locus of the violation is in the planning stage of action.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)607-611
    Number of pages5
    JournalExperimental Brain Research
    Volume201
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2010

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Fitts's Law violation and motor imagery: are imagined movements truthful or lawful?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this