title: Semantic priming revealed by mouse movement trajectories.
abstract: Congruency effects are taken as evidence that semantic information can be processed automatically. However, these effects are often weak, and the straightforward association between primes and targets can exaggerate congruency effects. To address these problems, a mouse movement method is applied to scrutinize congruency effects. In one experiment, participants judged whether two numbers were the same ("3\3") or different ("3\5"), preceded by briefly presented pictures with either positive or negative connotations. Participants indicated their responses by clicking a "Same" or "Different" button on the computer screen, while their cursor trajectories were recorded for each trial. The trajectory data revealed greater deviation to unselected buttons in incongruent trials (e.g., "3\5" preceded by a green traffic light picture). This effect was influenced by the type of responses but not by prime durations. We suggest that the mouse movement method can complement the reaction time to study masked semantic priming.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, Mail Stop: 4235, College Station, TX 77843-4235, USA. Electronic address: xiaokunchen@tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Kunchen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, Mail Stop: 4235, College Station, TX 77843-4235, USA. Electronic address: takashi-yamauchi@tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamauchi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016287:Computer Peripherals; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D060865:Repetition Priming / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Congruency effects; Mouse movement; Semantic priming