Figure 3. Distributions of observed choices, rates, and accelerations.

The top panel compares distributions over the twenty-four choices, over increment and decrement conditions, against a random baseline. Without temporal information, aggregated choices are difficult to distinguish from uniformly random behavior. The middle panel compares distributions of participant rates. The observed distribution is consistent with the measured mean rate of 4.7 choices per round, forward or backward for increment and decrement conditions, respectively. The bottom panel illustrates accelerations (the difference between consecutive first differences). Observed accelerations are consistent with behavior that either maintains the previous round’s rate or makes only minor adjustments to it. Note that, since the null hypothesis is identical across measures, the circles representing random behavior in each panel have identical radius.