The Shape of Belief: Developing a Mousetracking-Based Relational Implicit Measure

Abstract

The Propositional Evaluation Paradigm (PEP) has recently shown promise as a relational implicit measure (i.e., an implicit measure which can specify how stimuli are related). Whereas the standard PEP measures response times, mousetracking is becoming increasingly popular for quantifying response competition, with distinct advantages beyond response times. Across four preregistered experiments (N = 737), we interface the utility of the PEP method with the unique benefits of mousetracking by developing a mousetracking PEP (MT-PEP). The MT-PEP very effectively captured group-level beliefs across domains (Experiments 1–4). It produced larger effects (Experiment 3), exhibited superior predictive validity (Experiment 3), and better split-half reliability (Experiments 3–4) than the standard PEP. Both PEPs appear to be intentionally controllable, particularly the MT-PEP (Experiments 3–4). Nevertheless, the MT-PEP shows strong potential in capturing relational information and may be considered implicit in the sense of capturing fast and unaware (but not unintentional) responding.