Monitoring Information Processing and Decisions: The Mouselab System

In order to better understand the cognitive processes underlying judgment and choice, decision researchers have begun to use a variety of process tracing techniques. The idea is to complement many traditional measures of judgment and choice with a high density of observations on the intermediate stages of processing. This report documents a procedure for monitoring the information acquisition stages of decision behavior. The procedure is based on a micro-computer controlled pointing device called a mouse. The procedure offers a number of flexible graphics and data recording routines. The relationship of the procedure to other process tracing techniques is discussed.