Mouse-tracking evidence for parallel anticipatory option evaluation

Abstract

In fast-paced, dynamic tasks, the ability to anticipate the future outcome of a sequence of events is crucial to quickly selecting an appropriate course of action among multiple alternative options. There are two classes of theories that describe how anticipation occurs. Serial theories assume options are generated and evaluated one at a time, in order of quality, whereas parallel theories assume simultaneous generation and evaluation. The present research examined the option evaluation process during a task designed to be analogous to prior anticipation tasks, but within the domain of narrative text comprehension. Prior research has relied on indirect, off-line measurement of the option evaluation process during anticipation tasks. Because the movement of the hand can provide a window into underlying cognitive processes, online metrics such as continuous mouse tracking provide more fine-grained measurements of cognitive processing as it occurs in real time. In this study, participants listened to three-sentence stories and predicted the protagonists' final action by moving a mouse toward one of three possible options. Each story was presented with either one (control condition) or two (distractor condition) plausible ending options. Results seem most consistent with a parallel option evaluation process because initial mouse trajectories deviated further from the best option in the distractor condition compared to the control condition. It is difficult to completely rule out all possible serial processing accounts, although the results do place constraints on the time frame in which a serial processing explanation must operate.

Mouse tracking as a window into decision making

“…In the past 10 years, mouse tracking has become a popular method for studying the dynamics of cognitive processes in different domains, ranging from general decision making (Koop, 2013;Koop & Johnson, 2013;McKinstry, Dale, & Spivey, 2008) and social cognition (Freeman & Ambady, 2010;Freeman, Dale, & Farmer, 2011;Freeman & Johnson, 2016;Freeman, Pauker, & Sanchez, 2016) to phonetic competition (Cranford & Moss, 2017;Spivey, Grosjean, & Knoblich, 2005) and syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic processing (Dale & Duran, 2011;Farmer, Cargill, Hindy, Dale, & Spivey, 2007;Sauerland, Tamura, Koizumi, & Tomlinson, 2017;Tomlinson, Bailey, & Bott, 2013;andXiao &Yamauchi, 2014, 2017, among others).…”

The effects of internal representations on performance and fluidity in a motor task

“…Cursor movement task We developed a bespoke online motor task (Fig. 2 ) adapted from previous literature that used cursor movement tasks to measure motor control (Cranford & Moss, 2018 ; Kimura & Nakano, 2019 ; Maraj et al, 2003 ). This continuous, closed-loop, precision motor task was chosen as it incorporates the speed accuracy trade off applicable to many areas of motor performance (such as sports; Beilock & Carr, 2001 ), a continuous element that is present in conscious control work in gait (Ellmers & Young, 2018 ), and offers enough complexity to potentially require multiple elements of verbalisable control.…”

“…Results showed that data closely corresponded to data collected using the same procedures in the lab. One method of collecting detailed data on movement execution that has been popular in the lab is mouse tracking (Cranford & Moss, 2018 ; Kieslich et al, 2019 ; Rheem et al, 2018 ). This process records coordinates of the participant’s cursor during task execution, a feature that is now available on the online data collection platform ‘Gorilla’ (Anwyl-Irvine et al, 2020 ).…”

The Effects of Internal Representations on Performance and Fluidity in a Motor Task

“…Results showed that data closely corresponded to data collected using the same procedures in the lab. One method of collecting detailed data on movement execution that has been popular in the lab is mouse tracking (Cranford & Moss, 2018;Kieslich et al, 2018;Rheem et al, 2018). This process records coordinates of the participant's cursor during task execution, a feature that is now available on the online data collection platform 'Gorilla' (Anwyl-Irvine et al, 2020).…”