Dual-Egocentre Hypothesis on Angular Errors in Visually Directed Pointing

Abstract

We examined the hypothesis that angular errors in visually directed pointing, in which an unseen target is pointed to after its direction has been seen, are attributed to the difference between the locations of the visual and kinesthetic egocentres. Experiment 1 showed that in three of four cases, angular errors in visually directed pointing equaled those in kinesthetically directed pointing, in which a visual target was pointed to after its direction had been felt. Experiment 2 confirmed the results of experiment 1 for the targets at two different egocentric distances. Experiment 3 showed that when the kinesthetic egocentre was used as the reference of direction, angular errors in visually directed pointing equaled those in visually directed reaching, in which an unseen target is reached after its location has been seen. These results suggest that in the visually and the kinesthetically directed pointing, the egocentric directions represented in the visual space are transferred to the kinesthetic space and vice versa.