Preference of personal to extrapersonal space in a visuomotor task.

The speed of visually triggered movements depends, among other things, on the time needed for visuomotor transformations. We show that it takes on average 20-40 msec less time to respond to visual stimuli when they are projected on the reacting fingers than a few centimeters away from them. The result implies significant preference of the personal space to the extrapersonal space for stimuli used in the initiation of visually triggered movements.