Mouse-Tracking Paradigm

The mouse-tracking paradigm, popularized by Freeman and Ambady's 2010 MouseTracker software, uses the continuous trajectory of hand movements during a choice to reveal the real-time dynamics of cognition. Participants begin each trial with the cursor at the bottom of the screen and move it to one of two response options in the upper corners; the software records the streaming x- and y-coordinates of the cursor throughout the movement. Because the hand can begin moving before a decision is fully resolved, the curvature of the trajectory toward the unchosen option indexes the degree to which that alternative was simultaneously activated -- a graded, moment-by-moment signature of competition and conflict that a final button press cannot show. Mouse tracking became a popular, inexpensive process-tracing method in social cognition, used to study the dynamics of categorization, evaluation, stereotyping, and decision making as they unfold.