A phase plane approach to study the adaptive nature of a human performing a tracking task

One of the most complex and adaptive systems to study is a human involved in a closed loop tracking task. It is observed that when the forcing function of the closed loop system has a time varying velocity and acceleration profile, the human will track the input until it exceeds his physical (visual) limitation. When the input is changing too fast for the human to follow, adaptation (or regression) from tracking occurs. If, however, the input is not changing too rapidly, the human will reacquire the target and continue tracking. A study of this type of adaptability is considered here using the phase plane with a statistical analysis performed over a family of four input forcing functions.