EFFECTS OF MOVEMENT VELOCITY AND DURATION ON RESPONSE PROGRAMMING ANDPERFORMANCE IN A PUCK STRIKING TASK

An experiment was carried out in order to analyze the separate effects of movement velocity and duration on programming time and performance in a static puck striking movement task. Performance was measured by both time accuracy and variability of the distance moved by the puck c onsequently to the strike. 36 subjects, separated into 3 groups, were observed. A self-paced simple reaction time was used. Two movement vel ocites - 60 and 180 cm/s - and three movement duration - 200, 300 and 500 ms - were used. Reaction time, movement time, percentage of incorr ect trials, relative time accuracy and variability of the puck traject ory were measured. The results showed that velocity, rather than durat ion, is a key parameter of motor programming difficulty. Programming t ime for slow movements was longer than that for movements performed at high velocity. Variability of the distance moved by the puck increase d as movement velocity increased but not as movement duration lengthen ed. These results support Ulrich and Wing's (1991) conclusions, which are that movement impulse can be changed in two ways. The first way is to change the time parameter, this had no effect on programming time. The second way consisted of changing the force parameter, this had a major effect on programming time and force variability.