Psychology researchers have found that how people move mice may reveal their propensity to take risks: Given a choice between risky and non-risky options, risk-takers go for the risky option first... Even if they ultimately choose the safer option. Similarly, those with low risk tolerance tended to move the mouse toward the safer option, even if they ultimately chose to gamble...

"We show that measuring mouse movements while participants are deciding between a risky gamble and a fixed dividend is a powerful detection of choice-related conflict," the paper says. Moreover, mouse movements predict risk preferences even when the choice outcome does not.

In short, by tracking the movements of the study participants' mice, the scientists were able to glimpse not only what choices they made, but how they made them. Study lead author Paul Stillman told The Ohio State University News that, "The study is a very interesting one.

This is a particularly interesting conclusion, and a familiar one if you've been playing the game consistently. Have you ever moused over a riskier boon in "Hades" before choosing the safer one that is easier to get into your build? Have you ever chosen a flat damage bonus over a better chance of a critical hit? Or do you honestly prefer game mechanics based on chance over predictable effects? Are you the type of person who hates or loves Hearthstone's unpredictable Reno decks and Yog-Salon spam?

Honestly, it cannot be overstated how obvious these findings feel based on how you are behaving in a game where you are presented with a choice between safe bets and risk. Ian Kravitch, co-investigator of the study, stated that "in many cases, we were able to accurately predict how a person would behave in the future simply by observing them once they made the choice to gamble or not."

The study was conducted by Paul Stillman, Ian Krajbach, and Melissa J. Ferguson. It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.