Psychometrics of the continuous mind: Measuring cognitive sub-processes via mouse tracking
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Psychometrics of the continuous mind: Measuring cognitive sub-processes via mouse tracking Stefan Scherbaum 1 & Maja Dshemuchadse 2
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2019
Abstract The measurement of psychological properties often relies on discrete measures, for example, answers in questionnaires or responses in tasks. This focus on discrete measures neglects information that is present in the process leading to an answer or a response. A method to trace such processes is mouse tracking. Mouse tracking promises to open a continuous window onto the processes leading from a stimulus to a response. However, most mouse-tracking studies fall short of the promise to extract dynamic psychometrically valid markers for the different sub-processes, which are intertwined on the way to the final response. Here we used time-continuous multiple regression (TCMR) to extract dynamic markers for the different sub-processes leading to a response. From these markers, we extracted information about the timing, the duration, and the strength of the influence of the different sub-processes. We evaluated these dynamic measures of sub-processes for their psychometric properties, i.e. reliability, which is a basis for their use in the study of individual differences. Furthermore, we applied these dynamic measures in a grouplevel study to identify differences in the sub-processes of resolving response conflict between groups performing either a Simon or a flanker task. We found specific temporal patterns that match predictions from a conceptual model of these tasks. We concluded that the extracted information from mouse movements could be used as psychometrically valid dynamic measures of psychological properties and their differences across individuals and situations. A software toolbox to perform the described analyses in Matlab is provided (osf.io/5e3vn). Keywords Mouse tracking . Process tracing . Psychometrics . Individual differences . Cognitive control
Introduction The psychological study of differences between individuals and between different situations usually relies on outcomePublic significance statement Our study shows that we get deeper insight into the difference between persons and situations from looking at how persons give responses in psychological tasks. We measured this “how” by tracking participants’ computer mouse movements while they decided on one of two response boxes on the screen. In contrast to previous studies, we provide here a method that allows for analyzing the movements statistically to estimate the reliability of the found differences. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00981-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Stefan Scherbaum [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Zellescher Weg 17, 01062 Dresden, Germany
2
Department of Social Sciences, Hochschule Zittau-Görlitz, Brückestraße 1, Görlitz 02826, Germany
based measures of tests or tasks, t
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