Without visual feedback, correction cannot occur and movement becomes ballistic

What it is

Endpoint correction relies on feedback about the relation between target and hand or cursor during or after the initial stroke. When visual feedback is occluded, delayed, frozen, or unavailable, residual error cannot be estimated well and movement approaches ballistic movement: a preplanned action is issued and outcome is awaited, with precision deteriorating quickly for narrow targets.

Why it happens

Closed-loop control continually updates error through vision and proprioception. Removing a key visual channel prevents later submovements from responding precisely to current deviation, leaving initial planning and coarse sense. Initial endpoint noise becomes a miss directly, broad-target tolerance matters more, and delayed feedback can prompt over- or miscorrection from outdated information.

Studying it

Manipulate cursor visibility, occlusion, display latency, or feedback freeze and compare trajectories, correction count, endpoint variability, time, and hits. Separate no-feedback from delayed-feedback conditions and log whether users adopt slower conservative strategies. Gaze and motion sampling can show whether alternative visual cues remain.

Where it stops holding

Proprioception, sound, and practised spatial memory can partly substitute feedback, so control is not always absent. Short distances, broad targets, and highly learned movements rely less on vision; precise complex work is more sensitive. Experimental visual deprivation is not identical to every brief real-interface occlusion.

Related

• Same group: B1.16.1 Pointing usually comprises a fast ballistic stroke and slower corrections · B1.16.2 Correction count rises with relative ballistic endpoint error · B1.16.3 Proportional error reduction per correction yields a logarithmic time relation · B1.16.4 Enlarging a target primarily shortens correction, not the ballistic phase
• Nearby: B1.01 Fitts's law · B1.05 Steering law
• Search terms: ballistic movement · visual feedback · open-loop control