An electronic apparatus for the study of the human operator in a 1-dimensional closed-loop continuous pursuit task

THE quantitative understanding of the behavior of a human being functioning as an element of a closed-loop control system has become a matter of considerable importance in recent years. In addition to the purely military problems of high-speed flight, fire control, and similar tasks there are many situations such as automobile driving, operating machine tools, and other complicated mechanical devices, where a specific knowledge of human characteristics would make possible improvements in design and performance of the system. The study of human behavior in this area has been carried on by psychologists and industrial engineers for some time. However, the rapid development of the theory and practice of feedback control systems in the past several years has given new impetus and interest to the study of the nature of human behavior in analogous situations.1¿8 See reference 8 for a very complete bibliography on subjects of interest in this field.