Tracking Second Thoughts: Continuous and Discrete Revision Processes during Visual Lexical Decision

Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0116193

“…In contrast to this click procedure, in other paradigms participants indicate their responses just by moving the mouse cursor into those areas (e.g., Scherbaum et al, 2010), which we will call a hover procedure. Comparing the two procedures, it is rather obvious that the click procedure allows for second thoughts, and hence possibly (discrete) changes of mind (Barca & Pezzulo, 2015;Resulaj, Kiani, Wolpert, & Shadlen, 2009), since the response process is not terminated when the cursor reaches the response box, but only after clicking in it (P2).…”

Section: Varieties In the Implementation Of Mouse-trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validating mouse-tracking: How design factors influence action dynamics in intertemporal decision making

Schoemann

¹

,

Lüken

²

,

Grage

³

et al. 2019

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Mouse-tracking is an increasingly popular process-tracing method. It builds on the assumption that the continuity of cognitive processing leaks into the continuity of mouse movements. Because this assumption is the prerequisite for meaningful reverse inference, it is an important question whether the assumed interaction between continuous processing and movement might be influenced by the methodological setup of the measurement. Here we studied the impacts of three commonly occurring methodological variations on the quality of mouse-tracking measures, and hence, on the reported cognitive effects. We used a mouse-tracking version of a classical intertemporal choice task that had previously been used to examine the dynamics of temporal discounting and the date-delay effect (Dshemuchadse, Scherbaum, & Goschke, 2013). The data from this previous study also served as a benchmark condition in our experimental design. Between studies, we varied the starting procedure. Within the new study, we varied the response procedure and the stimulus position. The starting procedure had the strongest influence on common mouse-tracking measures, and therefore on the cognitive effects. The effects of the response procedure and the stimulus position were weaker and less pronounced. The results suggest that the methodological setup crucially influences the interaction between continuous processing and mouse movement. We conclude that the methodological setup is of high importance for the validity of mouse-tracking as a process-tracing method. Finally, we discuss the need for standardized mouse-tracking setups, for which we provide recommendations, and present two promising lines of research toward obtaining an evidence-based gold standard of mouse-tracking. Keywords Mouse-tracking. Action dynamics. Process-tracing. Boundary conditions. Intertemporal choice Decision science has experienced a paradigmatic shift evolving its focus, methods, and approaches from an outcomebased perspective toward a more process-oriented paradigm (Oppenheimer & Kelso, 2015). This process paradigm acknowledges the temporal nature of basic mental processes and, hence, builds theories of choice incorporating perceptual, attentional, memory, and decisional processes. To test these process explanations, process-tracing methods are required. In the last 60 years, decision scientists introduced a variety of process-tracing methods to the field-for example, verbal protocols (e.g., Ericson & Simon, 1984), eye tracking (e.g., Russo & Rosen, 1975), and most recently, mouse-tracking (e.g., Dale, Kehoe, & Spivey, 2007; Spivey, Grosjean, & Knoblich, 2005) (for an overview, please see Schulte-Mecklenbeck et al., 2017). Whenever scientists apply such process-tracing methods, they rely on specific prerequisites and core concepts in order to conduct the reverse inference (Poldrack, 2006): Reverse inference describes the reasoning by which the presence of a particular cognitive process is inferred from a pattern of neuroimaging or behavioral data (cf. Heit, 2015). One prerequi...

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“…Both patterns are observed in the human studies [ 16 , 18 , 21 , 42 ]. Interestingly, both discrete and gradual revision processes have been reported in the same study and even in the same experimental condition, pointing to the necessity of a model that accounts for both [ 39 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…For concreteness, we consider a task based around a computer mouse experiment in which the subject moves a cursor onto a target while making a perceptual choice ( e.g. a lexical decision [ 16 , 39 ]). However, we emphasize that this model is considered here as more broadly representative of any decision making task using action to make the choice.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Choice: How Action Influences Perceptual Decision Making

Lepora

¹

,

Pezzulo

²

2015

Self Cite

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Embodied Choice considers action performance as a proper part of the decision making process rather than merely as a means to report the decision. The central statement of embodied choice is the existence of bidirectional influences between action and decisions. This implies that for a decision expressed by an action, the action dynamics and its constraints (e.g. current trajectory and kinematics) influence the decision making process. Here we use a perceptual decision making task to compare three types of model: a serial decision-then-action model, a parallel decision-and-action model, and an embodied choice model where the action feeds back into the decision making. The embodied model incorporates two key mechanisms that together are lacking in the other models: action preparation and commitment. First, action preparation strategies alleviate delays in enacting a choice but also modify decision termination. Second, action dynamics change the prospects and create a commitment effect to the initially preferred choice. Our results show that these two mechanisms make embodied choice models better suited to combine decision and action appropriately to achieve suitably fast and accurate responses, as usually required in ecologically valid situations. Moreover, embodied choice models with these mechanisms give a better account of trajectory tracking experiments during decision making. In conclusion, the embodied choice framework offers a combined theory of decision and action that gives a clear case that embodied phenomena such as the dynamics of actions can have a causal influence on central cognition.

show abstract

“…In contrast to this click-procedure, in other paradigms, participants indicate their responses by just moving the mouse cursor into those areas (e.g., Scherbaum et al, 2010), which we will call a hover-procedure. Comparing the two procedures, it is rather obvious that the click-procedure, allows for second thoughts, and hence possibly (discrete) changes of mind (Barca & Pezzulo, 2015;Resulaj, Kiani, Wolpert, & Shadlen, 2009), since the response process is not terminated when reaching the response box, but only after clicking into it (P2).…”

Section: Varieties In the Implementation Of Mouse-trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validating Mouse-Tracking: How Design Factors Influence Action Dynamics in Intertemporal Decision Making

Schoemann¹,

Lüken²,

Grage³

et al. 2019

Preprint

1

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mouse-tracking is an increasingly popular process-tracing method. It builds on the assumption that the continuity of cognitive processing leaks into the continuity of mouse movements. As this assumption is the prerequisite for a meaningful reverse inference, it is an important question whether the assumed interaction between continuous processing and movement might be influenced by the methodological setup of the measurement. Here, we study the impact of three commonly occurring methodological variations on the quality of mouse-tracking measures, and hence, the reported cognitive effects. We used a mouse-tracking version of a classical intertemporal choice task that had previously been used to examine the dynamics of temporal discounting and the date-delay effect (Dshemuchadse, Scherbaum, & Goschke, 2013). The data from this previous study also served as a benchmark condition in our experimental design. Between studies, we varied the starting procedure. Within the new study, we varied the response procedure and the stimuli position. The starting procedure had the strongest influence on common mouse-tracking measures and therefore the cognitive effects. The effect of the response procedure and the stimuli position was weaker and less pronounced. The results suggest that the methodological setup crucially influences the interaction between continuous processing and mouse movement. We conclude that the methodological setup is of high importance for the validity of mouse-tracking as a process-tracing method. Finally, we discuss the need for standardized mouse-tracking setups for which we provide recommendations, and present two promising lines of research to obtain an evidence-based gold standard of mouse-tracking.

show abstract

Tracking Second Thoughts: Continuous and Discrete Revision Processes during Visual Lexical Decision

Cited by 51 publications

References 35 publications

Validating mouse-tracking: How design factors influence action dynamics in intertemporal decision making

Validating mouse-tracking: How design factors influence action dynamics in intertemporal decision making

Embodied Choice: How Action Influences Perceptual Decision Making

Validating Mouse-Tracking: How Design Factors Influence Action Dynamics in Intertemporal Decision Making

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