Effect of long-term practice and time-on-target information feedback on a complex tracking task.

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Abstract
Thirteen paid, male students served as Ss in a 66-day experiment on the Mast Pedestal Sight Manipulation Test (PSMT). Seven Ss (Control Group) received little or no intentional intratrial performance information feedback; the other six Ss (Experimental Group) heard a tone after they had been on target (scoring simultaneously on AER) for 1 sec. continuously. After 40 sessions of practice, the tone reinforcement was discontinued and all Ss were given 5 more sessions (days) of practice. The Experimental Group showed a slight but statistically insignificant drop after the tone was eliminated. After two weeks'' rest both groups were again given 5 sessions, one session per day. The Experimental Group was still numerically but not statistically inferior to the Control Group. The Control and Experimental Groups did not differ at any time during the study. The major findings, with respect to time continuously on target, showed that as S improves in total time on target, the improvement is not a simple increase in the number of hits but rather a shift in the frequency distribution of durations of hits. The very short hits decrease in frequency and eventually account for but a small proportion of the total time on target, whereas the frequency of long-duration hits increases and accounts for a much larger percentage of total time on target.
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