title: Hand in motion reveals mind in motion.
abstract: Recently, researchers have measured hand movements en route to choices on a screen to understand the dynamics of a broad range of psychological processes. We review this growing body of research and explain how manual action exposes the real-time unfolding of underlying cognitive processing. We describe how simple hand motions may be used to continuously index participants' tentative commitments to different choice alternatives during the evolution of a behavioral response. As such, hand-tracking can provide unusually high-fidelity, real-time motor traces of the mind. These motor traces cast novel theoretical and empirical light onto a wide range of phenomena and serve as a potential bridge between far-reaching areas of psychological science - from language, to high-level cognition and learning, to social cognitive processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Tufts University Medford, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Freeman
authors.forename: Rick
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Farmer