Pointing and Visual Feedback for Spatial Interaction in Large-Screen Display Environments

The two visual systems hypothesis in neuroscience suggests that pointing without visual feedback may be less affected by spatial visual illusions than cognitive interactions such as judged target location. Our study examined predictions of this theory for target localization on a large-screen display. We contrasted pointing interactions under varying levels of visual feedback with location judgments of targets that were surrounded by an offset frame. As predicted by the theory, the frame led to systematic errors in verbal report of target location but not in pointing without visual feedback for some participants. We also found that pointing with visual feedback produced a similar level of error as location judgments, while temporally lagged visual feedback appeared to reduce these errors somewhat. This suggests that pointing without visual feedback may be a useful interaction technique in situations described by the two visual systems literature, especially with large-screen displays and immersive environments.