Summary: | Most decision-making
models describing individual differences in heuristics and biases tasks build
on the assumption that reasoners produce a first incorrect answer in a quick,
automatic way which they may or may not override later and that the advantage
of high capacity reasoners arises from this late correction mechanism. To
investigate this assumption, we developed a mouse-tracking analysis technique
to capture individuals’ first answers and subsequent thinking dynamics. Across
two denominator neglect task experiments, we observed that individuals
initially move the mouse cursor towards the correct answer option in a
substantial number of cases suggesting that reasoners may not always produce an
incorrect answer first. Furthermore, we observed that, compared to low capacity
reasoners, high capacity individuals revise their first answer more frequently
if it is incorrect and make fewer changes if it is correct. However, we did not
find evidence that high capacity individuals produce correct initial answers
more frequently. Consistent with the predictions of previous decision-making
models, these results suggest that in the denominator neglect task the
capacity-normativity relationship arises after the initial response is
formulated. The present work demonstrates how the analysis of mouse
trajectories can be utilized to investigate individual differences in
decision-making and help us better apprehend the dynamics of thinking behind
decision biases.
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