Every time you swipe or tap on your smartphone—checking email, shopping online, or scrolling social media—you leave behind clues about how your brain works. A new study from the University of Alberta shows that these everyday actions can reveal insights about decision-making, using the same kind of data that labs collect with specialized equipment.

This discovery could transform how researchers study human behavior. Instead of bringing a handful of people into a lab, scientists could use smartphones and tablets to gather data from tens of thousands of people remotely.

Making decisions

Traditional decision-making research focuses on the final action—like clicking a button—while ignoring how people move to make that choice. Some studies track computer mouse movements, but this new approach puts motion at the center of the research.

Physical movement is deeply tied to decision-making. Whether it’s reaching for an item on a shelf or walking to open a door, how you move—how fast, how straight, how smooth—says a lot about the thought process behind your actions. Smartphones and tablets are especially useful for studying this, since swiping and tapping mimic real-life reaching better than moving a computer mouse.

In the study, researchers asked participants to complete tasks like comparing numbers, judging the truth of sentences, and picking favorite photos on touch devices. They tracked how long people took to react, how quickly they moved, and how curved their finger paths were. The results showed that touch devices captured these behaviors in a way that reflected real-world movement.

Smarter insights

“Touch screens may even be better at showing how decisions are made,” the researchers explained. “The brain treats swiping like real reaching movements, so the process is more natural and easier to study.”

The potential uses are huge. In hiring, for instance, companies could combine movement tracking with questionnaires to better assess candidates. In healthcare, clinicians could use movement data to track a patient’s recovery from injury or illness remotely. Sports teams might even use it to evaluate athlete performance and readiness to return to play.

Thanks to the technology we already use every day, scientists can now gather richer data, faster and at a larger scale than ever before. What used to require a lab is now in your pocket, quietly revealing how you think and act.