Fitts' law in human standing: the effect of scaling

Fitts' law states that the movement time (MT) of an aiming movement is a linear function of the index of difficulty (ID), where ID = log2(2A/W), A is the movement amplitude, and W is the target width. This law implies that MT should remain unchanged as long as A/W remains constant (i.e. the absence of a sealing effect). The goal of this study was to investigate whether, during upright posture, reciprocal-pointing movements with the center of pressure location follow Fitts' law. Six subjects performed the task with six IDs factorially combined with four As. The results showed that for each A, MT was a linear function of ID. However, the slopes of the linear-regression lines increased with decreases in A. These findings indicate the presence of a scaling effect which violates Fitts' law. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.