Quantifying an Internal Model of Target Motion in a Manual Tracking Task

Abstract

Present researh has sought to expand our understanding of human information processing and control behavior In target tracking tasks. Specifically, It has focused on the problem of quantifying the human's "internal" model that charaterizes his perception of short-term target motion, and on the development of concomitant adaptive schemes for generating esimates of target velodty and acceleation using these models. A combined experimental and analytic program has studied simulated target trking performance as modified by short periods (~1 s) of target blanking. The blankin occur at pseudorandom times during a run. During the blanking period, human operator performance is governed almost entirely by his internal model representation of the target motion. Ensemble data from these blanking experiments have been used to suitably refine the optimal control model, including the target submodel. The resulting model represents the state of the art with regard to human operator modeing In dynamic antiaircraft-artillery (AAA) systems.