Modeling human visuo-motor strategy during vehicle control

The detailed modeling of human control strategy in a simulated visual hover task is described. Previous work used describing function analyses to identify the optical cues used by the human operator and did not capture the unique pulsatile control activity shown in the experimental data: control stick motion was zero over relatively long time segments and exhibited sudden changes from one level to another that resembled the output of a second-order system to step inputs. Progress in modeling that pulsatile aspect of human control behavior is documented. The analyses provide a description of the human visuo-motor control strategy, although they do not provide clues about how and why this strategy is learned and acquired