Over the past decade, mouse-tracking in choice tasks has become a popular method across psychological science. This method exploits hand movements as a measure of multiple response activations that can be tracked continuously over hundreds of milliseconds. Whereas early mouse-tracking research focused on specific debates, researchers have realized the methodology has far broader theoretical value. This more recent work demonstrates that mouse-tracking is a widely applicable measure across the field, capable of exposing the micro-structure of real-time decisions including their component processes and millisecond-resolution time-course in ways that inform theory. In the article, recent advances in the mouse-tracking approach are described, and comparisons with the gold standard measure of reaction time and other temporally-sensitive methodologies are provided. Future directions, including mapping to neural representations with brain-imaging and ways to improve our theoretical understanding of mouse-tracking methodology, are discussed.
Keywords: decision-making; hand movement; mouse-tracking; reaction time; temporal dynamics.