I have been thinking about this question. I have many first-hand experiences about how the quality of control has worsened in controlling for understanding the discussant’s message because of missing hearing aids or too much background noise; or in controlling for understanding the written text because of missing eyeglasses or just too low light; etc. etc. But I understand the problem of testing: we cannot compare the perception straightly to its environmental correlate.
In a way, there are two “things” we must perceive for to control something. First, we must perceive that there is something to control. I would like to say that we must perceive some object, but perhaps it is enough to say that there must be the controlled variable and some context to it. This side could be called the what side of perception or control. Second, we must perceive the value of that variable. This side could be called the how much side. The first is necessary because we cannot perceive AND control just speed, size, or color but always the speed, size, or color of something. The accuracy of perception relates to these both sides of perception. Usually I have thought that especially with higher perceptions it is important for the controller to perceive accurately what it is what she wants to control because the type of output should be suitable for just that.
This what-side can, however, be especially difficult to test, but this text from Making Sense of Behavior (1998, p. 7) opens a nice possibility to test the how-much-side:
“… When you drive a car,
particularly in traffic or on a mountain road, you look where
you’re going almost continuously. On that twisty mountain road
with cars coming around every blind corner you don’t look away
for even one second.The general rule is that if you want to control something you
have to perceive it. This doesn’t mean just perceiving that
something exists, as in looking out the windshield and noticing
that there’s a road out there. It means perceiving exactly the
aspect of the world that is supposed to be under control. You
don’t care what color the road is or whether it’s four lanes wide
or sis; when you’re trying to stay in your lane, you’re looking at
the relationship of the front of the car to the lane, and trying to
keep that visual picture in a certain configuration that you know
means you’re in your lane. You can’t do that blindfolded; you
can’t do it without watching what’s going on nearly all the time.”
This opens a possibility to test the effect of the accuracy of perception to the quality of control very simply. It could be a normal tracking study where the position of the target changes quasi randomly (smoothly) AND in addition the target (ad/or the cursor too) vanishes from the screen for short periods. The calculated position of the target and the position of the cursor determined by the controller simulate here the environmental correlate of the controller’s perception. You can easily change the accuracy of the perception by changing the time how often and for how long times the controller loses the sight to what is going on. (Of course also a disturbance could be added to the position of the cursor if it is affected via mouse or joystick.)
This way I think it could be easily tested whether the quality of control depends on how closely the perception being controlled corresponds to its environmental correlate. What do you think?
Best
Eetu