Mouse tracking reveals that bilinguals behave like experts

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 610-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA INCERA ◽  
CONOR T. McLENNAN
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Correct Response ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Bilingual Literature ◽  
Over Time

We used mouse tracking to compare the performance of bilinguals and monolinguals in a Stroop task. Participants were instructed to respond to the color of the words (e.g., blue in yellow font) by clicking on response options on the screen. We recorded participants’ movements of a computer mouse: when participants started moving (initiation times), and how fast they moved towards the correct response (x-coordinates over time). Interestingly, initiation times were longer for bilinguals than monolinguals. Nevertheless, when comparing mouse trajectories, bilinguals moved faster towards the correct response. Taken together, these results indicate that bilinguals behave qualitatively differently from monolinguals; bilinguals are “experts” at managing conflicting information. Experts across many different domains take longer to initiate a response, but then they outperform novices. These qualitative differences in performance could be at the root of apparently contradictory findings in the bilingual literature.

The time course of within and between-language interference in bilinguals

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Incera ◽  
Conor T McLennan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Language Activation ◽  
Control Trajectory ◽  
Over Time

Purpose: Recent research has provided support for linguistic coactivation, the view that the two languages of a bilingual are simultaneously active. Importantly, even if the system is fundamentally nonselective, the two languages of a bilingual can be activated to different degrees. The main contribution of the present paper is to empirically test what “different degrees of activation” really means. Differences could emerge in the timing or the magnitude of language activation. Methodology: Most of the research to date has been based on experiments using reaction times. In the present experiment participants responded to a bilingual Stroop task using a computer mouse. We argue that mouse tracking can provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of cognitive processes. Data and analysis: We used a series of t-tests to analyze participants’ mouse trajectories ( n = 20). We compared the x-coordinates over time for each of the four experimental conditions (Congruent-Within, Congruent-Between, Incongruent-Within, Incongruent-Between) with the x-coordinates over time for the control trajectory. Findings: Differences in the timing, but not the magnitude, of interference are at the root of the differential effects within and between languages. Within-language interference emerged 80 ms earlier than between-language interference. Originality: To our knowledge, the current experiment is the first to use the dynamic mouse-tracking paradigm to compare the time course of the two languages of a bilingual participant. Implications: The mouse-tracking paradigm can help to distinguish between the timing and the magnitude of interference, informing current theories of the bilingual mind.

Cognitive Processing of Miscommunication in Interactive Listening: An Evaluation of Listener Indecision and Cognitive Effort

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Roche ◽  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
Laura M. Morett
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Computer Mouse Tracking ◽  
Listening Task ◽  
Processing Effort

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the social and cognitive underpinnings of miscommunication during an interactive listening task. Method An eye and computer mouse–tracking visual-world paradigm was used to investigate how a listener's cognitive effort (local and global) and decision-making processes were affected by a speaker's use of ambiguity that led to a miscommunication. Results Experiments 1 and 2 found that an environmental cue that made a miscommunication more or less salient impacted listener language processing effort (eye-tracking). Experiment 2 also indicated that listeners may develop different processing heuristics dependent upon the speaker's use of ambiguity that led to a miscommunication, exerting a significant impact on cognition and decision making. We also found that perspective-taking effort and decision-making complexity metrics (computer mouse tracking) predict language processing effort, indicating that instances of miscommunication produced cognitive consequences of indecision, thinking, and cognitive pull. Conclusion Together, these results indicate that listeners behave both reciprocally and adaptively when miscommunications occur, but the way they respond is largely dependent upon the type of ambiguity and how often it is produced by the speaker.

scholarly journals The Action Dynamics of Approach-Avoidance Conflict in Decision-Making: A mouse-tracking study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santiago Garcia-Guerrero ◽  
Denis O'Hora ◽  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
Stefan Scherbaum
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Approach And Avoidance ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Shortest Route ◽  
Dynamic Resolution ◽  
Action Dynamics ◽  
Aversive Consequence ◽  
Approach Avoidance ◽  
Continuous Dynamic

Approach-avoidance conflict is observed in the competing motivations towards the benefits and away from the costs of a decision. The current study employs the action dynamics of response motion, via mouse-tracking, in an attempt to characterize the continuous dynamic resolution of such conflicts. Approach-avoidance conflict (AAC) was generated by varying the appetitive consequences of a decision (i.e., point rewards and shorter participation time) in the presence of a simultaneous aversive consequence (i.e., shock probability). In two experiments, we found that AAC differentially affected response trajectories. Overall, approach trajectories were less complex than avoidance trajectories. As approach and avoidance motivations neared equipotentiality, response trajectories were more deflected from the shortest route to the eventual choice. Consistency in the location of approach and avoidance response options reduced variability in performance enabling more sensitive estimates of dynamic conflict. The time course of competing influences on response trajectories including trial-to-trial effects and conflict between approach and avoidance were estimated using regression analyses. We discuss these findings in terms of a dynamic theory of approach-avoidance that we hope will lead to insights of practical relevance in the field of maladaptive avoidance.

All of the above: When multiple correct response options enhance the testing effect

Memory ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 1013-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Bishara ◽  
Lauren A. Lanzo
Keyword(s):  
Correct Response ◽  
Testing Effect ◽  
Response Options

scholarly journals Computer mouse tracking reveals motor signatures in a cognitive task of spatial language grounding

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (7) ◽  
pp. 2424-2460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Lins ◽  
Gregor Schöner
Keyword(s):  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Spatial Relation ◽  
Selection Response ◽  
Target Color ◽  
Mouse Tracking ◽  
Mouse Cursor ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Computer Mouse Tracking ◽  
Attraction Effects

Abstract In a novel computer mouse tracking paradigm, participants read a spatial phrase such as “The blue item to the left of the red one” and then see a scene composed of 12 visual items. The task is to move the mouse cursor to the target item (here, blue), which requires perceptually grounding the spatial phrase. This entails visually identifying the reference item (here, red) and other relevant items through attentional selection. Response trajectories are attracted toward distractors that share the target color but match the spatial relation less well. Trajectories are also attracted toward items that share the reference color. A competing pair of items that match the specified colors but are in the inverse spatial relation increases attraction over-additively compared to individual items. Trajectories are also influenced by the spatial term itself. While the distractor effect resembles deviation toward potential targets in previous studies, the reference effect suggests that the relevance of the reference item for the relational task, not its role as a potential target, was critical. This account is supported by the strengthened effect of a competing pair. We conclude, therefore, that the attraction effects in the mouse trajectories reflect the neural processes that operate on sensorimotor representations to solve the relational task. The paradigm thus provides an experimental window through motor behavior into higher cognitive function and the evolution of activation in modal substrates, a longstanding topic in the area of embodied cognition.

Social Judgments of Digitally Manipulated Stuttered Speech: An Evaluation of Self-Disclosure on Cognition

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 3986-4000
Author(s):  
Ashley M. Ferguson ◽  
Jennifer M. Roche ◽  
Hayley S. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Social Judgments ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Mouse Cursor ◽  
Negative Beliefs ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Over Time

Purpose Persons who stutter (PWS) may be susceptible to discrimination because of negative judgments made by listeners. The current study sought to determine how the cognitive system's explicit (i.e., conscious) and implicit (i.e., nonconscious) biases about PWS are impacted by self-disclosure. Method A computer mouse–tracking paradigm was used to evaluate categorical social judgments about PWS. Computer mouse trajectories, which have been shown to reveal underlying cognitive pull or competition between opposing concepts, were used to measure implicit bias (i.e., nonconscious stereotypes). Participants were asked to explicitly categorize the speaker as either intelligent or unintelligent before and after listening to a speaker self-disclose. Mouse cursor trajectories during the explicit response categorization were used to evaluate implicit bias associated with the decision-making process. Results Results indicated that participants chose “intelligent” for a higher proportion of the trials in the disclosure condition compared to baseline, showing that listeners' explicit biases changed after listening to a self-disclosure that the speaker stutters. Results also indicated listeners exhibited a more negative implicit bias, based on computer mouse trajectories, when rating the PWS relative to the “persons who do not stutter” talker, but this negative implicit bias did seem to reduce over time after the disclosure was made. Conclusions These findings indicate that, even though explicit and implicit biases were evident when listeners heard stuttering, both explicit and implicit biases seemed to extinguish over time after a self-disclosure. Although the bias was not completely extinguished, these results provide promising evidence toward developing methods to reduce negative beliefs and reactions toward PWS. Supplemental Material http://osf.io/mwrp7/

Examining the Time Course of Prime Effects on Stroop Processing

1994 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 675-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Koch ◽  
James M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Color Word ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Word Stimulus ◽  
Inhibitory Effects ◽  
Color Response ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Over Time

This study was conducted to assess the effect of priming on the Stroop task over time. Color-congruent, color-incongruent, and neutral stimuli were randomly presented. Five prime conditions were also used. The prime conditions included valid color, invalid color, valid word, and invalid word primes and no prime. Primes were presented to 8 subjects at varying stimulus onset asynchronies ranging from −200 msec., i.e., 200 msec. before the color-word stimulus, to 200 msec., i.e., 200 msec. after the color-word stimulus. Analysis suggested the facilitory or inhibitory effects of semantic information on the Stroop task are reduced when the prime follows the color-word stimulus by 200 msec. This implies 200 msec. are needed to make the proper color response. A model is proposed to account for the findings. Methodological considerations for studies using priming and the Stroop task are also discussed.

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