A joystick is any manner of computer hardware peripheral in which spatial deflections of a narrow cylinder cause accompanying, preprogrammed manipulations to stimuli on a connected computer. Using a joystick, an experimentally savvy animal can navigate through [virtual] space, categorize stimuli, make decisions, and otherwise participate in any number of computerized cognitive-behavioral research tasks (Washburn et al. 1989).
By the 1980s in the United States, the relative availability and utility of home computers and gaming systems had made feasible psychological testing apparatus more complex than the operant levers and button boxes of experimental psychology’s earlier history. However, although the experimental rigor afforded by home computers was equivalently useful to researchers of both human and animal psychologies, the mouse and keyboard apparatus that became standardized for use with the new technology was hyper-specified for human hands and brains. Adaptation of joystick...
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Whitham, W., Beran, M.J., Washburn, D.A. (2022). Joystick. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_746
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