AUTHOR=Freeman Jonathan , Dale Rick , Farmer Thomas 

TITLE=Hand in Motion Reveals Mind in Motion

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=2

YEAR=2011

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00059

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00059

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>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.</p>