Hidden cognitive states revealed in choice reaching tasks

Movement trajectories as a window into the dynamics of emerging neural representations

The rapid transformation of sensory inputs into meaningful neural representations is critical to adaptive human behaviour. While non-invasive neuroimaging methods are the de-facto method for investigating neural representations, they remain expensive, not widely available, time-consuming, and restrictive. Here we show that movement trajectories can be used to measure emerging neural representations with fine temporal resolution. By combining online computer mouse-tracking and publicly available neuroimaging data via representational similarity analysis (RSA), we show that movement trajectories track the unfolding of stimulus- and category-wise neural representations along key dimensions of the human visual system. We demonstrate that time-resolved representational structures derived from movement trajectories overlap with those derived from M/EEG (albeit delayed) and those derived from fMRI in functionally-relevant brain areas. Our findings highlight the richness of movement trajectories and the power of the RSA framework to reveal and compare their information content, opening new avenues to better understand human perception.

How to overcome biases against creativity: The role of familiarity with and confidence in original solutions

Despite the societal relevance of creative ideas, humans favor traditional over more original solutions, conceivably because of the increased uncertainty that comes with trying novel approaches. Here, we tested whether this anti-creativity bias can be counteracted by increasing familiarity with, and confidence in, creative solutions. Participants chose between creative and traditional uses for given objects. In study 1 (N = 67 international adults), these objects repeated either identically or conceptually during the experiment; and in study 2 (N = 68 international adults), choice options were either self-generated or externally provided. Spatial and temporal measures of response selection indicated an implicit bias towards the traditional approach, independent of repetition type (study 1). This attraction towards the norm was also found for self-generated creative ideas, but it was considerably reduced compared to other-generated ideas (study 2). Instead of increasing familiarity, building confidence in creative solutions might thus be the key to reduce corresponding uncertainty and promote successful creative ideation.

TAT-HUM: Trajectory analysis toolkit for human movements in Python

Human movement trajectories can reveal useful insights regarding the underlying mechanisms of human behaviors. Extracting information from movement trajectories, however, can be challenging because of their complex and dynamic nature. The current paper presents a Python toolkit developed to help users analyze and extract meaningful information from the trajectories of discrete rapid aiming movements executed by humans. This toolkit uses various open-source Python libraries, such as NumPy and SciPy, and offers a collection of common functionalities to analyze movement trajectory data. To ensure flexibility and ease of use, the toolkit offers two approaches: an automated approach that processes raw data and generates relevant measures automatically, and a manual approach that allows users to selectively use different functions based on their specific needs. A behavioral experiment based on the spatial cueing paradigm was conducted to illustrate how one can use this toolkit in practice. Readers are encouraged to access the publicly available data and relevant analysis scripts as an opportunity to learn about kinematic analysis for human movements.

How flexible is cognitive control? (Mouse) tracking conflict adaptation across context similarities

Exerting cognitive control to remain on-task and reach our goals is a crucial skill, as is the ability to flexibly adapt our responding in rapidly changing environments. The dynamics of cognitive control are typically studied by examining how participants process stimuli that contain competing relevant and irrelevant information in so-called conflict tasks. Adjustments in performance following the experience of conflict, also termed conflict adaptation, suggests a certain degree of flexibility in the deployment of cognitive control. The present study investigated to what extent conflict adaptation effects transfer across trials of the same and different tasks in three online mouse-tracking experiments. Adaptations of the Simon and Stroop tasks were combined to create different levels of context similarity between the paired tasks. Based on a previous review (Braem et al., Frontiers in Psychology 5:1-13, 2014), across-task conflict adaptation was expected only in the most and least similar contexts. In contrast to our hypothesis, conflict adaptation effects were observed in at least one measure in all three experiments. To our surprise, task order also seemed to impact the size of across-task conflict adaptation effects. The heterogeneity in the current results highlight the importance of using sensitive measurement tools to evaluate conflict adaptation and suggest that the occurrence of across-task conflict adaptation may be conditional on more than just shared relevant and irrelevant dimensions.

Social gaze cueing elicits facilitatory and inhibitory effects on movement execution when the model might act on an object

Social cues, such as eye gaze and pointing fingers, can increase the prioritisation of specific locations for cognitive processing. A previous study using a manual reaching task showed that, although both gaze and pointing cues altered target prioritisation (reaction times [RTs]), only pointing cues affected action execution (trajectory deviations). These differential effects of gaze and pointing cues on action execution could be because the gaze cue was conveyed through a disembodied head; hence, the model lacked the potential for a body part (i.e., hands) to interact with the target. In the present study, the image of a male gaze model, whose gaze direction coincided with two potential target locations, was centrally presented. The model either had his arms and hands extended underneath the potential target locations, indicating the potential to act on the targets (Experiment 1), or had his arms crossed in front of his chest, indicating the absence of potential to act (Experiment 2). Participants reached to a target that followed a nonpredictive gaze cue at one of three stimulus onset asynchronies. RTs and reach trajectories of the movements to cued and uncued targets were analysed. RTs showed a facilitation effect for both experiments, whereas trajectory analysis revealed facilitatory and inhibitory effects, but only in Experiment 1 when the model could potentially act on the targets. The results of this study suggested that when the gaze model had the potential to interact with the cued target location, the model's gaze affected not only target prioritisation but also movement execution.

Rapid, systematic updating of movement by accumulated decision evidence

Acting in the natural world requires not only deciding among multiple options but also converting decisions into motor commands. How the dynamics of decision formation influence the fine kinematics of response movement remains, however, poorly understood. Here we investigate how the accumulation of decision evidence shapes the response orienting trajectories in a task where freely-moving rats combine prior expectations and auditory information to select between two possible options. Response trajectories and their motor vigor are initially determined by the prior. Rats movements then incorporate sensory information as early as 60 ms after stimulus onset by accelerating or slowing depending on how much the stimulus supports their initial choice. When the stimulus evidence is in strong contradiction, rats change their mind and reverse their initial trajectory. Human subjects performing an equivalent task display a remarkably similar behavior. We encapsulate these results in a computational model that, by mapping the decision variable onto the movement kinematics at discrete time points, captures subjects' choices, trajectories and changes of mind. Our results show that motor responses are not ballistic. Instead, they are systematically and rapidly updated, as they smoothly unfold over time, by the parallel dynamics of the underlying decision process.

The dynamics of attentional guidance by working memory contents

Working memory (WM) contents can guide attention toward matching sensory information in the environment, but there are mixed findings regarding whether only a single prioritized item or multiple items held in WM can guide attention. The present study examines the limit of WM-guided attention with a novel task procedure and mouse trajectory analysis. Specifically, we introduced a perceptual-matching task utilizing the continuous estimation procedure within the maintenance interval of a WM task for one or two colors. We found that the overall perceptual matching mouse trajectory were robustly biased toward the location of WM-match color on the color-wheel (i.e., attraction bias), but only at memory set size one. However, the analysis of circular mouse trajectory distributions, through hierarchical Bayesian modeling, revealed two separable central peaks at both memory set sizes. Furthermore, model-free analysis demonstrated that the perceptual matching mouse trajectory patterns were similar regardless of memory set sizes. Together, these results support the single-item account and highlight the utility of mouse trajectory analyses in hypothesis testing in experimental psychology.

Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation over human motor cortex on cognitive-motor and sensory-motor functions

The primary motor cortex (M1) is broadly acknowledged for its crucial role in executing voluntary movements. Yet, its contributions to cognitive and sensory functions remain largely unexplored. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive neurostimulation method that can modify brain activity, thereby enabling the establishment of a causal link between M1 activity and behavior. This study aimed to investigate the online effects of tDCS over M1 on cognitive-motor and sensory-motor functions. Sixty-four healthy participants underwent either anodal or sham tDCS while concurrently performing a set of standardized robotic tasks. These tasks provided sensitive and objective assessments of brain functions, including action selection, inhibitory control, cognitive control of visuomotor skills, proprioceptive sense, and bimanual coordination. Our results revealed that anodal tDCS applied to M1 enhances decision-making capacity in selecting appropriate motor actions and avoiding distractors compared to sham stimulation, suggesting improved action selection and inhibitory control capabilities. Furthermore, anodal tDCS reduces the movement time required to accomplish bimanual movements, suggesting enhanced bimanual performance. However, we found no impact of anodal tDCS on cognitive control of visuomotor skills and proprioceptive sense. This study suggests that augmenting M1 activity via anodal tDCS influences cognitive-motor and sensory-motor functions in a task-dependent manner.

Temporal aspects of two types of backward crosstalk in dual-tasks: An analysis of continuous mouse-tracking data

A common explanation for processing limitations in dual-tasking is the existence of a bottleneck during response selection, meaning that the selection of responses can only occur serially for different tasks. However, a large body of data shows that features of a (secondary) Task 2 can already influence the processing of a (primary) Task 1. Such effects are referred to as backward crosstalk effects (BCEs). In the present study, two types of such BCEs were investigated: the compatibility-based BCE, which depends on the dimensional (often spatial) overlap between task features, and a BCE based on a go/no-go task in Task 2 (no-go BCE). Joining a line of research that suggests different mechanisms for these two types of BCEs, we investigated them using a mouse-tracking setup. Time continuous analyses revealed that the compatibility-based BCE triggered a spatial activation of the Task 2 response early during Task 1 processing, whereas the no-go BCE triggered an inhibitory effect in the case of a no-go Task 2, which spills over to Task 1 execution. This occurred, however, earlier in the time course than expected. The results are discussed with regard to recent models of dual-task processing.

Beyond simple laboratory studies: Developing sophisticated models to study rich behavior

Psychology and neuroscience are concerned with the study of behavior, of internal cognitive processes, and their neural foundations. However, most laboratory studies use constrained experimental settings that greatly limit the range of behaviors that can be expressed. While focusing on restricted settings ensures methodological control, it risks impoverishing the object of study: by restricting behavior, we might miss key aspects of cognitive and neural functions. In this article, we argue that psychology and neuroscience should increasingly adopt innovative experimental designs, measurement methods, analysis techniques and sophisticated computational models to probe rich, ecologically valid forms of behavior, including social behavior. We discuss the challenges of studying rich forms of behavior as well as the novel opportunities offered by state-of-the-art methodologies and new sensing technologies, and we highlight the importance of developing sophisticated formal models. We exemplify our arguments by reviewing some recent streams of research in psychology, neuroscience and other fields (e.g., sports analytics, ethology and robotics) that have addressed rich forms of behavior in a model-based manner. We hope that these "success cases" will encourage psychologists and neuroscientists to extend their toolbox of techniques with sophisticated behavioral models - and to use them to study rich forms of behavior as well as the cognitive and neural processes that they engage.

Hand Motions Reveal Attentional Status and Subliminal Semantic Processing: A Mouse-Tracking Technique

Theories of embodied cognition suggest that hand motions and cognition are closely interconnected. An emerging technique of tracking how participants move a computer mouse (i.e., the mouse-tracking technique) has shown advantages over the traditional response time measurement to detect implicit cognitive conflicts. Previous research suggests that attention is essential for subliminal processing to take place at a semantic level. However, this assumption is challenged by evidence showing the presence of subliminal semantic processing in the near-absence of attention. The inconsistency of evidence could stem from the insufficient sensitivity in the response time measurement. Therefore, we examined the role of attention in subliminal semantic processing by analyzing participants' hand motions using the mouse-tracking technique. The results suggest that subliminal semantic processing is not only enhanced by attention but also occurs when attention is disrupted, challenging the necessity of facilitated top-down attention for subliminal semantic processing, as claimed by a number of studies. In addition, by manipulating the color of attentional cues, our experiment shows that the cue color per se could influence participants' response patterns. Overall, the current study suggests that attentional status and subliminal semantic processing can be reliably revealed by temporal-spatial features extracted from cursor motion trajectories.

Perceptual decisions interfere more with eye movements than with reach movements

Perceptual judgements are formed through invisible cognitive processes. Reading out these judgements is essential for advancing our understanding of decision making and requires inferring covert cognitive states based on overt motor actions. Although intuition suggests that these actions must be related to the formation of decisions about where to move body parts, actions have been reported to be influenced by perceptual judgements even when the action is irrelevant to the perceptual judgement. However, despite performing multiple actions in our daily lives, how perceptual judgements influence multiple judgement-irrelevant actions is unknown. Here we show that perceptual judgements affect only saccadic eye movements when simultaneous judgement-irrelevant saccades and reaches are made, demonstrating that perceptual judgement-related signals continuously flow into the oculomotor system alone when multiple judgement-irrelevant actions are performed. This suggests that saccades are useful for making inferences about covert perceptual decisions, even when the actions are not tied to decision making.

Continuous action with a neurobiologically inspired computational approach reveals the dynamics of selection history

Everyday perception-action interaction often requires selection of a single goal from multiple possibilities. According to a recent framework of attentional control, object selection is guided not only by the well-established factors of perceptual salience and current goals but also by selection history. Yet, underlying mechanisms linking selection history and visually-guided actions are poorly understood. To examine such interplay and disentangle the impact of target and distractor history on action selection, we employed a priming-of-popout (PoP) paradigm combined with continuous tracking of reaching movements and computational modeling. Participants reached an odd-colored target among homogeneous distractors while we systematically manipulated the sequence of target and distractor colors from one trial to the next. We observed that current reach movements were significantly influenced by the interaction between attraction by the prior target feature and repulsion by the prior distractor feature. With principal component regression, we found that inhibition led by prior distractors influenced reach target selection earlier than facilitation led by the prior target. In parallel, our newly developed computational model validated that current reach target selection can be explained best by the mechanism postulating the preceded impact of previous distractors followed by a previous target. Such converging empirical and computational evidence suggests that the prior selection history triggers a dynamic interplay between target facilitation and distractor inhibition to guide goal-directed action successfully. This, in turn, highlights the necessity of an explicitly integrated approach to determine how visual attentional selection links with adaptive actions in a complex environment.

The role of primary motor cortex in manual inhibition of return: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study

Inhibition of return (IOR) is a behavioural phenomenon characterised by longer response times (RTs) to stimuli presented at previously cued versus uncued locations. The neural mechanisms underlying IOR effects are not fully understood. Previous neurophysiological studies have identified a role of frontoparietal areas including posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in the generation of IOR, but the contribution of primary motor cortex (M1) has not been directly tested. The present study investigated the effects of single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over M1 on manual IOR in a key-press task where peripheral (left or right) targets followed a cue at the same or opposite location at different SOAs (100/300/600/1000 ms). In Experiment 1, TMS was applied over right M1 on a randomized 50% of trials. In Experiment 2, active or sham stimulation was provided in separate blocks. In the absence of TMS (non-TMS trials in Experiment 1 and sham trials in Experiment 2), evidence of IOR was observed in RTs at longer SOAs. In both experiments, IOR effects differed between TMS and non-TMS/sham conditions, but the effects of TMS were greater and statistically significant in Experiment 1 where TMS and non-TMS trials were randomly interspersed. The magnitude of motor-evoked potentials was not altered by the cue-target relationship in either experiment. These findings do not support a key role of M1 in the mechanisms of IOR but suggest the need for further research to elucidate the role of the motor system in manual IOR effects.

Evidence for entropy maximisation in human free choice behaviour

The freedom to choose between options is strongly linked to notions of free will. Accordingly, several studies have shown that individuals demonstrate a preference for choice, or the availability of multiple options, over and above utilitarian value. Yet we lack a decision-making framework that integrates preference for choice with traditional utility maximisation in free choice behaviour. Here we test the predictions of an inference-based model of decision-making in which an agent actively seeks states yielding entropy (availability of options) in addition to utility (economic reward). We designed a study in which participants freely navigated a virtual environment consisting of two consecutive choices leading to reward locations in separate rooms. Critically, the choice of one room always led to two final doors while, in the second room, only one door was permissible to choose. This design allowed us to separately determine the influence of utility and entropy on participants' choice behaviour and their self-evaluation of free will. We found that choice behaviour was better predicted by an inference-based model than by expected utility alone, and that both the availability of options and the value of the context positively influenced participants' perceived freedom of choice. Moreover, this consideration of options was apparent in the ongoing motion dynamics as individuals navigated the environment. In a second study, in which participants selected between rooms that gave access to three or four doors, we observed a similar pattern of results, with participants preferring the room that gave access to more options and feeling freer in it. These results suggest that free choice behaviour is well explained by an inference-based framework in which both utility and entropy are optimised and supports the idea that the feeling of having free will is tightly related to options availability.

Mapping the mental space of emotional concepts through kinematic measures of decision uncertainty

Emotional concepts and their mental representations have been extensively studied. Yet, some ecologically relevant aspects, such as how they are processed in ambiguous contexts (e.g., in relation to other emotional stimuli that share similar characteristics), are incompletely known. We employed a similarity judgement of emotional concepts and manipulated the contextual congruency of the responses along the two main affective dimensions of hedonic valence and physiological activation, respectively. Behavioural and kinematics (mouse-tracking) measures were combined to gather a novel 'similarity index' between emotional concepts, to derive topographical maps of their mental representations. Self-report (interoceptive sensibility, positive-negative affectivity, depression) and physiological measures (heart rate variability, HRV) have been collected to explore their possible association with emotional conceptual representation. Results indicate that emotional concepts typically associated with low arousal profit by contextual congruency, with faster responses and reduced uncertainty when contextual ambiguity decreases. The emotional maps recreate two almost orthogonal axes of valence and arousal, and the similarity measure captures the smooth boundaries between emotions. The emotional map of a subgroup of individuals with low positive affectivity reveals a narrower conceptual distribution, with variations in positive emotions and in individuals with reduced arousal (such as those with reduced HRV). Our work introduces a novel methodology to study emotional conceptual representations, bringing the behavioural dynamics of decision-making processes and choice uncertainty into the affective domain. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Rethinking Vision and Action

Action is an important arbitrator as to whether an individual or a species will survive. Yet, action has not been well integrated into the study of psychology. Action or motor behavior is a field apart. This is traditional science with its need for specialization. The sequence in a typical laboratory experiment of see → decide → act provides the rationale for broad disciplinary categorizations. With renewed interest in action itself, surprising and exciting anomalous findings at odds with this simplified caricature have emerged. They reveal a much more intimate coupling of vision and action, which we describe. In turn, this prompts us to identify and dwell on three pertinent theories deserving of greater notice.

Reciprocal facilitation between mental and visuomotor rotations

Humans exhibit remarkably complex cognitive abilities and adaptive behavior in daily life. Cognitive operation in the "mental workspace," such as mentally rotating a piece of luggage to fit into fixed trunk space, helps us maintain and manipulate information on a moment-to-moment basis. Skill acquisition in the "sensorimotor workspace," such as learning a new mapping between the magnitude of new vehicle movement and wheel turn, allows us to adjust our behavior to changing environmental or internal demands to maintain appropriate motor performance. While this cognitive and sensorimotor synergy is at the root of adaptive behavior in the real world, their interplay has been understudied due to a divide-and-conquer approach. We evaluated whether a separate domain-specific or common domain-general operation drives mental and sensorimotor rotational transformations. We observed that participants improved the efficiency of mental rotation speed after the visuomotor rotation training, and their learning rate for visuomotor adaptation also improved after their mental rotation training. Such bidirectional transfer between two widely different tasks highlights the remarkable reciprocal plasticity and demonstrates a common transformation mechanism between two intertwined workspaces. Our findings urge the necessity of an explicitly integrated approach to enhance our understanding of the dynamic interdependence between cognitive and sensorimotor mechanisms.

The influence of movement-related costs when searching to act and acting to search

Real-world search behavior often involves limb movements, either during search or after search. Here we investigated whether movement-related costs influence search behavior in two kinds of search tasks. In our visual search tasks, participants made saccades to find a target object among distractors and then moved a cursor, controlled by the handle of a robotic manipulandum, to the target. In our manual search tasks, participants moved the cursor to perform the search, placing it onto objects to reveal their identity as either a target or a distractor. In all tasks, there were multiple targets. Across experiments, we manipulated either the effort or time costs associated with movement such that these costs varied across the search space. We varied effort by applying different resistive forces to the handle, and we varied time costs by altering the speed of the cursor. Our analysis of cursor and eye movements during manual and visual search, respectively, showed that effort influenced manual search but did not influence visual search. In contrast, time costs influenced both visual and manual search. Our results demonstrate that, in addition to perceptual and cognitive factors, movement-related costs can also influence search behavior.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Numerous studies have investigated the perceptual and cognitive factors that influence decision making about where to look, or move, in search tasks. However, little is known about how search is influenced by movement-related costs associated with acting on an object once it has been visually located or acting during manual search. In this article, we show that movement time costs can bias visual and manual search and that movement effort costs bias manual search.

Moving beyond response times with accessible measures of manual dynamics

Button-press measures of response time (RT) and accuracy have long served a central role in psychological research. However, RT and accuracy provide limited insight into how cognitive processes unfold over time. To address this limitation, researchers have used hand-tracking techniques to investigate how cognitive processes unfold over the course of a response, are modulated by recent experience, and function across the lifespan. Despite the efficacy of these techniques for investigating a wide range of psychological phenomena, widespread adoption of hand-tracking techniques within the field is hindered by a range of factors, including equipment costs and the use of specialized software. Here, we demonstrate that the behavioral dynamics previously observed with specialized motion-tracking equipment in an Eriksen flanker task can be captured with an affordable, portable, and easy-to-assemble response box. Six-to-eight-year-olds and adults (N = 90) completed a computerized version of the flanker task by pressing and holding a central button until a stimulus array appeared. Participants then responded by releasing the central button and reaching to press one of two response buttons. This method allowed RT to be separated into initiation time (when the central button was released) and movement time (time elapsed between initiation and completion of the response). Consistent with previous research using motion-tracking techniques, initiation times and movement times revealed distinct patterns of effects across trials and between age groups, indicating that the method used in the current study presents a simple solution for researchers from across the psychological and brain sciences looking to move beyond RTs.

Taking the chance!-Interindividual differences in rule-breaking

While some individuals tend to follow norms, others, in the face of tempting but forbidden options, tend to commit rule-breaking when this action is beneficial for themselves. Previous studies have neglected such interindividual differences in rule-breaking. The present study fills this gap by investigating cognitive characteristics of individuals who commit spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking (rule-breakers) versus rule-followers. We developed a computerised task, in which 133 participants were incentivised to sometimes violate set rules which would-if followed-lead to a loss. While 52% of participants tended to break rules to obtain a benefit, 48% tended to follow rules even if this behaviour led to loss. Although rule-breakers experienced significantly more cognitive conflict (measured via response times and mouse movement trajectories) than rule-followers, they also obtained higher payoffs. In rule-breakers, cognitive conflict was more pronounced when violating the rules than when following them, and mainly during action planning. This conflict increased with frequent, recurrent, and early rule-breaking. Our results were in line with the Decision-Implementation-Mandatory switch-Inhibition model and thus extend the application of this model to the interindividual differences in rule-breaking. Furthermore, personality traits such as extroversion, disagreeableness, risk propensity, high impulsiveness seem to play a role in the appreciation of behaviours and cognitive characteristics of rule-followers and rule-breakers. This study opens the path towards the understanding of the cognitive characteristics of the interindividual differences in responses towards rules, and especially in spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking.

Biological motion elicits between-person Inhibition of Return in temporal and spatial movement parameters

The present study was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the processing of biological motion stimuli. To this end, we investigated if the inhibition of return (IoR) effect emerges in initiation times and trajectories of pointing movements to targets in left and right space where the preceding cues were pointing movement of a human model or a dot with the same biological motion. Targets were randomly presented in the same or opposite side from the direction of the motion cue. It was hypothesised that the visuomotor system should resonate with the biological motion of a dot, but that the human model should exaggerate the effect. Thus, the human model should trigger stronger attention shifts compared with the dot model and lead to more robust IoR effects in both spatial (movement) and temporal parameters of the observer's pointing responses. Initiation times and the spatial parameters (angle of the hand trajectory) of the pointing movements were analysed. Results indicate that facilitation and IoR effects triggered by human and dot stimuli did not differ. Based on these findings, it seems that the crucial feature of motion cues that generate shifts in attention is biological motion, rather than human appearance per se.

Shared and specialized coding across posterior cortical areas for dynamic navigation decisions

Animals adaptively integrate sensation, planning, and action to navigate toward goal locations in ever-changing environments, but the functional organization of cortex supporting these processes remains unclear. We characterized encoding in approximately 90,000 neurons across the mouse posterior cortex during a virtual navigation task with rule switching. The encoding of task and behavioral variables was highly distributed across cortical areas but differed in magnitude, resulting in three spatial gradients for visual cue, spatial position plus dynamics of choice formation, and locomotion, with peaks respectively in visual, retrosplenial, and parietal cortices. Surprisingly, the conjunctive encoding of these variables in single neurons was similar throughout the posterior cortex, creating high-dimensional representations in all areas instead of revealing computations specialized for each area. We propose that, for guiding navigation decisions, the posterior cortex operates in parallel rather than hierarchically, and collectively generates a state representation of the behavior and environment, with each area specialized in handling distinct information modalities.

Rational arbitration between statistics and rules in human sequence processing

Detecting and learning temporal regularities is essential to accurately predict the future. A long-standing debate in cognitive science concerns the existence in humans of a dissociation between two systems, one for handling statistical regularities governing the probabilities of individual items and their transitions, and another for handling deterministic rules. Here, to address this issue, we used finger tracking to continuously monitor the online build-up of evidence, confidence, false alarms and changes-of-mind during sequence processing. All these aspects of behaviour conformed tightly to a hierarchical Bayesian inference model with distinct hypothesis spaces for statistics and rules, yet linked by a single probabilistic currency. Alternative models based either on a single statistical mechanism or on two non-commensurable systems were rejected. Our results indicate that a hierarchical Bayesian inference mechanism, capable of operating over distinct hypothesis spaces for statistics and rules, underlies the human capability for sequence processing.

Compensative movement ameliorates reduced efficacy of rapidly-embodied decisions in humans

Dynamic environments, such as sports, often demand rapid decision-making and motor execution. The concept of embodied decision refers to the mutual link between both processes, but little is known about how these processes are balanced under severe time constraints. We address this problem by using a baseball-like hitting paradigm with and without Go/No-go judgment; participants were required to hit (Go) a moving target in the strike area or not to hit (No-go) other targets. We found that Go/No-go judgments were effective with regard to task performance, but efficacy was lost below the time constraint of 0.5 seconds mainly due to a reduction in judgment accuracy rather than movement accuracy. However, either slowing movement initiation in Go trials or canceling the movement in progress in No-go trials improved judgment accuracy. Our findings suggest that embodied decision efficacy is limited in split-second periods, but compensation is possible by changing ongoing movement strategies.

Long-Term Motor Learning in the "Wild" With High Volume Video Game Data

Motor learning occurs over long periods of practice during which motor acuity, the ability to execute actions more accurately, precisely, and in less time, improves. Laboratory-based studies of motor learning are typically limited to a small number of participants and a time frame of minutes to several hours per participant. There is a need to assess the generalizability of theories and findings from lab-based motor learning studies on larger samples and time scales. In addition, laboratory-based studies of motor learning use relatively simple motor tasks which participants are unlikely to be intrinsically motivated to learn, limiting the interpretation of their findings in more ecologically valid settings ("in the wild"). We studied the acquisition and longitudinal refinement of a complex sensorimotor skill embodied in a first-person shooter video game scenario, with a large sample size (N = 7174, 682,564 repeats of the 60 s game) over a period of months. Participants voluntarily practiced the gaming scenario for up to several hours per day up to 100 days. We found improvement in performance accuracy (quantified as hit rate) was modest over time but motor acuity (quantified as hits per second) improved considerably, with 40-60% retention from 1 day to the next. We observed steady improvements in motor acuity across multiple days of video game practice, unlike most motor learning tasks studied in the lab that hit a performance ceiling rather quickly. Learning rate was a non-linear function of baseline performance level, amount of daily practice, and to a lesser extent, number of days between practice sessions. In addition, we found that the benefit of additional practice on any given day was non-monotonic; the greatest improvements in motor acuity were evident with about an hour of practice and 90% of the learning benefit was achieved by practicing 30 min per day. Taken together, these results provide a proof-of-concept in studying motor skill acquisition outside the confines of the traditional laboratory, in the presence of unmeasured confounds, and provide new insights into how a complex motor skill is acquired in an ecologically valid setting and refined across much longer time scales than typically explored.

Apical amplification-a cellular mechanism of conscious perception?

We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations for network-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience. Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cells are summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. These inputs come from diverse sources and provide a context within which the transmission of information abstracted from sensory input to their basal and perisomatic synapses can be amplified when relevant. We argue that apical amplification enables conscious perceptual experience and makes it more flexible, and thus more adaptive, by being sensitive to context. Apical amplification provides a possible mechanism for recurrent processing theory that avoids strong loops. It makes the broadcasting hypothesized by global neuronal workspace theories feasible while preserving the distinct contributions of the individual cells receiving the broadcast. It also provides mechanisms that contribute to the holistic aspects of integrated information theory. As apical amplification is highly dependent on cholinergic, aminergic, and other neuromodulators, it relates the specific contents of conscious experience to global mental states and to fluctuations in arousal when awake. We conclude that apical dendrites provide a cellular mechanism for the context-sensitive selective amplification that is a cardinal prerequisite of conscious perception.

Discerning Mouse Trajectory Features With the Drift Diffusion Model

Mouse tracking, a new action-based measure of behavior, has advanced theories of decision making with the notion that cognitive and social decision making is fundamentally dynamic. Implicit in this theory is that people's decision strategies, such as discounting delayed rewards, are stable over task design and that mouse trajectory features correspond to specific segments of decision making. By applying the hierarchical drift diffusion model and the Bayesian delay discounting model, we tested these assumptions. Specifically, we investigated the extent to which the "mouse-tracking" design of decision-making tasks (delay discounting task, DDT and stop-signal task, SST) deviate from the standard "keypress" design of decision making tasks. We found remarkable agreement in delay discounting rates (intertemporal impatience) obtained in the keypress and mouse-tracking versions of DDT (ρ = 0.90) even though these tasks were given about 1 week apart. Rates of evidence accumulation converged well in the two versions (DDT, ρ = .86; SST, ρ = .55). Omission/commission error in SST showed high agreement (ρ = .42, ρ = .53). Mouse-motion features such as maximum velocity and AUC (area under the curve) correlated well with nondecision time (ρ = -.42) and boundary separation (ρ = .44)-the amount of information needed to accumulate prior to making a response. These results indicate that the response time (RT) and motion-based decision tasks converge well at a fundamental level, and that mouse-tracking features such as AUC and maximum velocity do indicate the degree of decision conflict and impulsivity.

The road towards understanding embodied decisions

Most current decision-making research focuses on classical economic scenarios, where choice offers are prespecified and where action dynamics play no role in the decision. However, our brains evolved to deal with different choice situations: "embodied decisions". As examples of embodied decisions, consider a lion that has to decide which gazelle to chase in the savannah or a person who has to select the next stone to jump on when crossing a river. Embodied decision settings raise novel questions, such as how people select from time-varying choice options and how they track the most relevant choice attributes; but they have long remained challenging to study empirically. Here, we summarize recent progress in the study of embodied decisions in sports analytics and experimental psychology. Furthermore, we introduce a formal methodology to identify the relevant dimensions of embodied choices (present and future affordances) and to map them into the attributes of classical economic decisions (probabilities and utilities), hence aligning them. Studying embodied decisions will greatly expand our understanding of what decision-making is.

Attentional capture in goal-directed action during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood

Attentional capture occurs when salient but task-irrelevant information disrupts our ability to respond to task-relevant information. Although attentional capture costs have been found to decrease between childhood and adulthood, it is currently unclear the extent to which such age-related changes reflect an improved ability to recover from attentional capture or to avoid attentional capture. In addition, recent research using hand-tracking techniques with adults indicates that attentional capture by a distractor can generate response activations corresponding to the distractor's location, consistent with action-centered models of attention. However, it is unknown whether attentional capture can also result in the capture of action in children and adolescents. Therefore, we presented 5-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 13- and 14-year-olds, and adults (N = 96) with a singleton search task in which participants responded by reaching to touch targets on a digital display. Consistent with action-centered models of attention, distractor effects were evident in each age group's movement trajectories. In contrast to movement trajectories, movement times revealed significant age-related reductions in the costs of attentional capture, suggesting that age-related improvements in attentional control may be driven in part by an enhanced ability to recover from-as opposed to avoid-attentional capture. Children's performance was also significantly affected by response repetition effects, indicating that children may be more susceptible to interference from a wider range of task-irrelevant factors than adults. In addition to presenting novel insights into the development of attention and action, these results highlight the benefits of incorporating hand-tracking techniques into developmental research.

Deliberative Decision-Making in Macaques Removes Reward-Driven Response Vigor

Most of our daily decisions are governed by one of two systems: an impulsive system driving instantaneous decisions and a deliberative system driving thoughtful ones. The impulsive system reacts to immediately available concrete rewards. In contrast, the deliberative system reacts to more delayed rewards and/or punishments, which imposes consideration of longer-term choice consequences. Contingency management for addiction treatment is hypothesized to engage deliberative processes. Ultimately, in both decision-making situations, an action is needed to enact the decision. Whether those actions differ in implementation is an open question whose answer could inform as to whether distinct neural systems are engaged. To explore whether there is evidence of separate mechanisms between deliberated and immediate choices, we trained monkeys to perform a decision-making task where they made a choice on a touch screen between two visual cues predicting different amounts of reward. In immediate choice (IC) trials, the cues appeared at the final response locations where subjects could immediately touch the chosen cue. In deliberated choice (DC) trials, compound cues appeared orthogonally to the response locations. After a delay, allowing for decision formation, an identifying cue component was displaced to the randomly assigned response locations, permitting subjects to reach for the chosen cue. Both trial types showed an effect of cue value on cue selection time. However, only IC trials showed an effect of the competing cue on response vigor (measured by movement duration) and a reach trajectory that deviated in the direction of the competing cue, suggesting a decision reexamination process. Reward modulation of response vigor implicates dopaminergic mechanisms. In DC trials, reach trajectories revealed a commitment to the chosen choice target, and reach vigor was not modulated by the value of the competing cue. Our results suggest that choice–action dynamics are shaped by competing offers only during instantaneous, impulsive choice. After a deliberated decision, choice–action dynamics are unaffected by the alternative offer cue, demonstrating a commitment to the choice. The potential relevance to contingency management is discussed.

Motor planning under uncertainty

Actions often require the selection of a specific goal amongst a range of possibilities, like when a softball player must precisely position her glove to field a fast-approaching ground ball. Previous studies have suggested that during goal uncertainty the brain prepares for all potential goals in parallel and averages the corresponding motor plans to command an intermediate movement that is progressively refined as additional information becomes available. Although intermediate movements are widely observed, they could instead reflect a neural decision about the single best action choice given the uncertainty present. Here we systematically dissociate these possibilities using novel experimental manipulations and find that when confronted with uncertainty, humans generate a motor plan that optimizes task performance rather than averaging potential motor plans. In addition to accurate predictions of population-averaged changes in motor output, a novel computational model based on this performance-optimization theory accounted for a majority of the variance in individual differences between participants. Our findings resolve a long-standing question about how the brain selects an action to execute during goal uncertainty, providing fundamental insight into motor planning in the nervous system.

Action Costs Rapidly and Automatically Interfere with Reward-Based Decision-Making in a Reaching Task

It is widely assumed that we select actions we value the most. While the influence of rewards on decision-making has been extensively studied, evidence regarding the influence of motor costs is scarce. Specifically, how and when motor costs are integrated in the decision process is unclear. Twenty-two right-handed human participants performed a reward-based target selection task by reaching with their right arm toward one of two visual targets. Targets were positioned in different directions according to biomechanical preference, such that one target was systematically associated with a lower motor cost than the other. Only one of the two targets was rewarded, either in a congruent or incongruent manner with respect to the associated motor cost. A timed-response paradigm was used to manipulate participants' reaction times (RT). Results showed that when the rewarded target carried the highest motor cost, movements produced at short RT (<350 ms) were deviated toward the other (i.e., non-rewarded, low-cost (LC) target). In this context participants needed an additional 150-ms delay to reach the same percentage of rewarded trials as when the LC target was rewarded. Crucially, motor costs affected the total earnings of participants. These results demonstrate a robust interference of motor costs in a simple reward-based decision-making task. They point to the rapid and automatic integration of motor costs at an early stage of processing, potentially through the direct modulation of competing action representations in parieto-frontal regions. The progressive overcoming of this bias with increasing RT is likely achieved through top-down signaling pertaining to expected rewards.

A tutorial on capturing mental representations through drawing and crowd-sourced scoring

When we draw, we are depicting a rich mental representation reflecting a memory, percept, schema, imagination, or feeling. In spite of the abundance of data created by drawings, drawings are rarely used as an output measure in the field of psychology, due to concerns about their large variance and their difficulty of quantification. However, recent work leveraging pen-tracking, computer vision, and online crowd-sourcing has revealed new ways to capture and objectively quantify drawings, to answer a wide range of questions across fields of psychology. Here, I present a tutorial on modern methods for drawing experiments, ranging from how to quantify pen-and-paper type studies, up to how to administer a fully closed-loop online experiment. I go through the concrete steps of designing a drawing experiment, recording drawings, and objectively quantifying them through online crowd-sourcing and computer vision methods. Included with this tutorial are code examples at different levels of complexity and tutorials designed to teach basic lessons about web architecture and be useful regardless of skill level. I also discuss key methodological points of consideration, and provide a series of potential jumping points for drawing studies across fields in psychology. I hope this tutorial will arm more researchers with the skills to capture these naturalistic snapshots of a mental image.

Modulation of visually guided action by the image and familiar sizes of real-world objects

In daily life, two aspects of real-world object size perception—the image size of an object and its familiar size in the real world—are highly correlated. Thus, whether these two aspects of object size differently affect goal-directed action (e.g., manual pointing) and how have scarcely been examined. Here, participants reached to touch one of two simultaneously presented objects based on either their image or familiar size, which could be congruent or incongruent (e.g., a rubber duck presented as smaller and larger than a boat, respectively). We observed that when pointing to target objects in the incongruent conditions, participants’ movements were slower and were more curved toward the incorrect object compared with the movements in the congruent conditions. By comparing performance in the congruent and incongruent conditions, we concluded that both image size and familiar size influenced action even when task irrelevant, indicating that both are processed automatically (Konkle & Oliva, 2012a). Image size, however, showed influence earlier in the course of movements and more robustly overall than familiar size. We additionally found that greater relative familiar size differences mitigated the impact of image size processing and increased the impact of familiar size processing on pointing movements. Overall, our data suggest that image size and familiar size perception interact both with each other and with visually guided action, but that the relative contributions of each are unequal and vary based on task demands.

Revealing the effects of temporal orienting of attention on response conflict using continuous movements

Orienting attention in time enables us to prepare for forthcoming perception and action (e.g., estimating the duration of a yellow traffic light when driving). While temporal orienting can facilitate performance on simple tasks, its influence on complex tasks involving response conflict is unclear. Here, we adapted the flanker paradigm to a choice-reaching task where participants used a computer mouse to reach to the left or right side of the screen, as indicated by the central arrow presented with either the congruent or incongruent flankers. We assessed the effects of temporal orienting by manipulating goal-driven temporal expectation (using probabilistic variations in target timing) and stimulus-driven temporal priming (using sequential repetitions versus switches in target timing). We tested how temporal orienting influenced the dynamics of response conflict resolution. Recent choice-reaching studies have indicated that under response conflict, delayed movement initiation captures the response threshold adjustment process, whereas increased curvature toward the incorrect response captures the degree of coactivation of the response alternatives during the controlled response selection process. Both temporal expectation and priming reduced the initiation latency regardless of response conflict, suggesting that both lowered response thresholds independently of response conflict. Notably, temporal expectation, but not temporal priming, increased the curvature toward the incorrect response on incongruent trials. These results suggest that temporal orienting generally increases motor preparedness, but goal-driven temporal orienting particularly interferes with response conflict resolution, likely through its influence on response thresholds. Overall, our study highlights the interplay between temporal orienting and cognitive control in goal-directed action.

Visual search under physical effort is faster but more vulnerable to distractor interference

Cognition and action are often intertwined in everyday life. It is thus pivotal to understand how cognitive processes operate with concurrent actions. The present study aims to assess how simple physical effort operationalized as isometric muscle contractions affects visual attention and inhibitory control. In a dual-task paradigm, participants performed a singleton search task and a handgrip task concurrently. In the search task, the target was a shape singleton among distractors with a homogeneous but different shape. A salient-but-irrelevant distractor with a unique color (i.e., color singleton) appeared on half of the trials (Singleton distractor present condition), and its presence often captures spatial attention. Critically, the visual search task was performed by the participants with concurrent hand grip exertion, at 5% or 40% of their maximum strength (low vs. high physical load), on a hand dynamometer. We found that visual search under physical effort is faster, but more vulnerable to distractor interference, potentially due to arousal and reduced inhibitory control, respectively. The two effects further manifest in different aspects of RT distributions that can be captured by different components of the ex-Gaussian model using hierarchical Bayesian method. Together, these results provide behavioral evidence and a novel model for two dissociable cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of simple muscle exertion on the ongoing visual search process on a moment-by-moment basis.

Reaching for known unknowns: Rapid reach decisions accurately reflect the future state of dynamic probabilistic information

Everyday tasks such as catching a ball appear effortless, but in fact require complex interactions and tight temporal coordination between the brain's visual and motor systems. What makes such interceptive actions particularly impressive is the capacity of the brain to account for temporal delays in the central nervous system-a limitation that can be mitigated by making predictions about the environment as well as one's own actions. Here, we wanted to assess how well human participants can plan an upcoming movement based on a dynamic, predictable stimulus that is not the target of action. A central stationary or rotating stimulus determined the probability that each of two potential targets would be the eventual target of a rapid reach-to-touch movement. We examined the extent to which reach movement trajectories convey internal predictions about the future state of dynamic probabilistic information conveyed by the rotating stimulus. We show that movement trajectories reflect the target probabilities determined at movement onset, suggesting that humans rapidly and accurately integrate visuospatial predictions and estimates of their own reaction times to effectively guide action.

Does high state anxiety exacerbate distractor interference?

Attentional Control Theory states that anxiety can cause attention to be allocated to irrelevant sources of information by hindering the ability to control attention and focus on the information that matters. In a separate line of inquiry, action-centred views of attention state that non-target distractors involuntarily activate response codes that may cause interference with target-directed movements (distractor interference effect). Due to the proposed negative effects of anxiety on attentional control, we examined whether anxiety could also modulate distractor interference. Participants executed target-directed aiming movements to one of three targets with the potential of a distractor being presented at near or far locations. Distractors were presented at different times with respect to the target presentation in order to explore the excitatory (0, -100 ms) and inhibitory (-850 ms) processing of the distractor. As a broad indication of the effect of anxiety, the analysis of no distractor trials indicated a lower proportion of time and displacement to reach peak velocity under high compared to low anxiety conditions. Meanwhile, the typical excitatory influence of the distractors located near, compared to far, at a short distractor-onset asynchrony was found in movement time and overall response time. However, this distractor excitation was even greater under high compared to low anxiety in the reaction time component of the response. These findings broadly implicate the attentional control perspective, but they further indicate an influence of anxiety on the excitation rather than inhibition of responses.

Science with Duplo: Multilevel goal management in preschoolers' toy house constructions

Executing goal-directed action sequences is fundamental to our behavior. Planning and controlling these action sequences improves greatly over the preschool years. In this study, we examined preschoolers' ability to plan action sequences. A total of 69 3- to 5-year-olds were assessed on an action sequence planning task with a hierarchical goal structure and on several executive function tasks. Planning abilities improved with age. Improvements in inhibition were related to avoidance of actions irrelevant to the goal hierarchy. Updating skill appears to be associated with executing actions relevant to different subgoals. Using optical motion capture, we showed that children who followed the subgoals displayed less movement with their nonreaching hand within a subgoal. This effect was enhanced in children with better inhibitory skills, suggesting that such skills allow greater focus on executing the current subgoal. Thus, we provide evidence that structuring of subgoals in action sequence planning emerges during the preschool years and that improvements in performance in action sequence planning are related to executive functions.

Visuomotor associations facilitate movement preparation

Many motor skills require rapidly choosing a movement goal and preparing a movement to that goal, such as in sports where circumstances often change quickly and many actions are possible. Humans can benefit from learning the perceptual cues that predict the requirements of movement so that the choice of a movement goal and movement preparation can occur earlier. However, there remains uncertainty about how these perceptual cues are learned. Here we investigate the use and learning of these perceptual-motor associations. First, we ask if episodic memory for associations can support learning. In Experiment 1, participants first memorized associations between symbols and movement goals. When these symbols were subsequently presented as cues, reaching movements were prepared as efficiently as if the goals themselves were previewed, without the need for additional practice. Next, we ask whether statistical learning can be used to learn the associations. In Experiment 2, participants had to learn the associations during the movement task itself. This learning enabled efficient movement preparation, and the rate of improvement scaled with the number and complexity of associations. These findings suggest that movement preparation can be facilitated by perceptual cues via statistical learning and memory recall, highlighting a potential role for learning and memory systems not conventionally implicated in motor behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Analyzing Response Times and Other Types of Time-to-Event Data Using Event History Analysis: A Tool for Mental Chronometry and Cognitive Psychophysiology

In this Methods article, we discuss and illustrate a unifying, principled way to analyze response time data from psychological experiments—and all other types of time-to-event data. We advocate the general application of discrete-time event history analysis (EHA) which is a well-established, intuitive longitudinal approach to statistically describe and model the shape of time-to-event distributions. After discussing the theoretical background behind the so-called hazard function of event occurrence in both continuous and discrete time units, we illustrate how to calculate and interpret the descriptive statistics provided by discrete-time EHA using two example data sets (masked priming, visual search). In case of discrimination data, the hazard analysis of response occurrence can be extended with a microlevel speed-accuracy trade-off analysis. We then discuss different approaches for obtaining inferential statistics. We consider the advantages and disadvantages of a principled use of discrete-time EHA for time-to-event data compared to (a) comparing means with analysis of variance, (b) other distributional methods available in the literature such as delta plots and continuous-time EHA methods, and (c) only fitting parametric distributions or computational models to empirical data. We conclude that statistically controlling for the passage of time during data analysis is equally important as experimental control during the design of an experiment, to understand human behavior in our experimental paradigms.

Using mouse cursor tracking to investigate online cognition: Preserving methodological ingenuity while moving toward reproducible science

Mouse cursor tracking has become a prominent method for characterizing cognitive processes, used in a wide variety of domains of psychological science. Researchers have demonstrated considerable ingenuity in the application of the approach, but the methodology has not undergone systematic analysis to facilitate the development of best practices. Furthermore, recent research has demonstrated effects of experimental design features on a number of mousetracking outcomes. We conducted a systematic review of the mouse-tracking literature to survey the reporting and spread of mouse variables (Cursor speed, Sampling rate, Training), physical characteristics of the experiments (Stimulus position, Response box position) and response requirements (Start procedure, Response procedure, Response deadline). This survey reveals that there is room for improvement in reporting practices, especially of subtler design features that researchers may have assumed would not impact research results (e.g., Cursor speed). We provide recommendations for future best practices in mouse-tracking studies and consider how best to standardize the mouse-tracking literature without excessively constraining the methodological flexibility that is essential to the field.

Design choices: Empirical recommendations for designing two-dimensional finger-tracking experiments

The continuous tracking of mouse or finger movements has become an increasingly popular research method for investigating cognitive and motivational processes such as decision-making, action-planning, and executive functions. In the present paper, we evaluate and discuss how apparently trivial design choices of researchers may impact participants' behavior and, consequently, a study's results. We first provide a thorough comparison of mouse- and finger-tracking setups on the basis of a Simon task. We then vary a comprehensive set of design factors, including spatial layout, movement extent, time of stimulus onset, size of the target areas, and hit detection in a finger-tracking variant of this task. We explore the impact of these variations on a broad spectrum of movement parameters that are typically used to describe movement trajectories. Based on our findings, we suggest several recommendations for best practice that avoid some of the pitfalls of the methodology. Keeping these recommendations in mind will allow for informed decisions when planning and conducting future tracking experiments.

The Influence of Emotional Visual Context on the Judgment of Face Trustworthiness

Background

Previous studies of face trustworthiness have often examined isolated face stimulus, ignoring the role of context.

Purpose

The current study used mouse-tracking technique and the seven-point Likert scale to examine the effect of emotional visual context on face trustworthiness judgment at the levels of the early evaluation process and final evaluation result.

Methods

Experiment 1 used mouse-tracking technique to study the impact of different contexts on the judgment of face trustworthiness at the early evaluation process. Experiment 2 used the seven-point Likert scale to study the effect of different contexts on the judgment of face trustworthiness at the final evaluation result.

Results

Experiment 1 found that when faces are embedded in threatening negative contexts, the mouse trajectories are more tortuous for trustworthy responses and straighter for untrustworthy responses than in neutral contexts. When faces are embedded in non-threatening negative contexts, the mouse trajectories are more tortuous for trustworthy responses but did not significantly differ for untrustworthy responses than in neutral contexts. When faces are embedded in positive contexts, the mouse trajectories are straighter for trustworthy responses and more tortuous for untrustworthy responses than in neutral contexts. Experiment 2 found that faces embedded in threatening and non-threatening negative contexts have lower scores and faces embedded in positive contexts have higher scores than in neutral contexts.

Conclusion

The results show that the emotional visual context significantly influences the judgment of face trustworthiness both at the levels of the early evaluation process and final evaluation result.