An experimental study based on mouse trajectories for clarifying human judgment processes

Abstract

People often make judgments within a very short time, such as about one second. These judgments are sometimes correct, but sometimes incorrect. How are the cognitive processes that underlie in these judgments? Our study investigated this issue based on mouse trajectories. In a behavioral experiment, participants were presented grid stimuli colored in black and white, and were asked to answer whether the black grids were more than half of the whole grids. Our analyses based on mouse trajectories showed that, about one second after a stimulus was presented, mouse movements often reached maximum velocity and that participants made many incorrect judgments. It is suggested that people are likely to incorrect judgments without cognitive conflict in the first one second.