Auditory Feedback and Fitts' Law

Previous research on Fitts' Law has concentrated on presenting tracking tasks using visual feedback. The present research investigated the effect of auditory and/or visual feedback with a tracking task. Thirty subjects (15 male, 15 female) performed the tracking task using a mouse control to track a target on a computer monitor. The three feedback conditions included auditory, visual, and auditory/visual. For each condition, the Index of Difficulty was varied and the movement time was measured. It was predicted that the auditory feedback would produce movement times that would conform to Fitts' Law. The results indicted that the auditory condition did not conform to Fitts' Law but that the visual [F(l,538) = 36.98,p<.001] and the auditory/visual [F(l,158) = 38.46,p<.001] conditions did produce movement times that were a linear function of the Index of Difficulty. Possible reasons for these results were discussed as well as the potential for future research.