We work with domain experts to bring the latest behavioral science to life — translating decades of research into tools that empower people and organizations to meet the cognitive demands of a rapidly changing world.
Foundational truths
Navigating this landscape requires moving past subjective, gameable assessments and progressing towards a science-based, insight-driven process.
AI just made it permanent.
Everything else is a proxy.
Not for everyone equally.
THE SCIENCE
Tversky & Kahneman (1974) — "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases"
Science, Vol. 185, pp. 1124–1131
The foundational paper. It describes three core heuristics — representativeness, availability, and anchoring — and demonstrates that they lead to systematic and predictable errors. This is the bedrock citation for every claim Mindmarqs makes about bias being measurable and structural. Over 40,000 citations. Nobel Prize-winning research.
Kahneman & Tversky (1979) — "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk"
Econometrica, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 263–291
The most cited paper in economics. Proves that real human decision-making systematically deviates from the rational actor model — establishing that how people evaluate risk and loss is predictably irrational. The theoretical engine behind Mindmarqs' entire premise.
Barber & Odean (2001) — "Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment"
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 116, No. 1
A landmark empirical study showing that overconfidence directly causes excessive trading and underperformance among financial professionals. Directly validates Mindmarqs' focus on overconfidence as a bias risk in financial roles — this is your most powerful financial-sector specific citation.
Barberis & Thaler (2003) — "A Survey of Behavioral Finance"
Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier
The most comprehensive academic survey linking psychological biases to investment behaviour, establishing that real-world financial decision-making is deeply influenced by psychological factors. Frequently cited as the definitive overview piece — ideal as a reference for a broad pitch audience.
Stanovich & West (2000) — "Individual Differences in Reasoning: Implications for the Rationality Debate"
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 23, No. 5
The paper that formally defined System 1 vs. System 2 thinking as measurable, individual-level cognitive dimensions — the scientific foundation for Mindmarqs' Cognitive Effort % metric. Establishes that the degree to which people engage deliberate versus intuitive thinking is a stable, assessable trait.
Schmidt & Hunter (1998) — "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology"
Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124, No. 2, pp. 262–274
The most authoritative meta-analysis on assessment validity. It demonstrates that traditional selection methods (personality tests, unstructured interviews) have significantly lower predictive validity for job performance than cognitive and judgment-based measures. This is the direct scientific argument for why existing assessments are losing ground — and why Mindmarqs' approach is the right direction.
Lahey & Oxley (2019) — "Simple Eye Movement Metrics Can Predict Future Decision-Making Performance"
Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 14, No. 3
This is the most directly relevant paper for Mindmarqs. It demonstrates that eye-movement information can be used to distinguish between luck and skill when evaluating decision-making abilities, and that simple eye metrics can predict future financial decision performance out of sample. This is the scientific statement of exactly what Mindmarqs does.
Borozan, Cannito & Palumbo (2022) — "Eye-Tracking for the Study of Financial Decision-Making: A Systematic Review"
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Vol. 35
Eye-tracking is a technology that gives researchers unprecedented access to individual visual attention and the possibility of tracing emotional and cognitive processes underlying decision-making. This is the definitive review paper — 150+ studies mapped, ideal as a broad credibility reference.
Toma, Cepoi et al. (2023) — "Gazing Through the Bubble: Financial Risk-Taking Using Eye-Tracking"
Financial Innovation (Springer)
Eye tracking can facilitate understanding of irrational decision-making in financial risk-taking contexts. Returns are sensitive to eye movement dynamics — arousal positively influences trading returns, while disengagement significantly reduces individual payoffs. This paper directly links attentional patterns captured by eye tracking to actual financial returns.
Sackett, Zhang, Berry & Lievens (2022) — "Revisiting Meta-Analytic Estimates of Validity in Personnel Selection"
Journal of Applied Psychology
The most important recent paper in the assessment field. This consequential paper revealed that structured interviews — and more broadly, process-based assessments — may in fact be the strongest predictor of job performance, offering a course correction to 50 years of research. This directly validates Mindmarqs' approach: measuring how people decide, not just what they know.
Schmidt & Hunter (1998) — "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology"
Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124
Still the most-cited benchmark paper. Nearly 100 years of research has revealed that the most valid predictor of future performance is general mental ability — but that many other measures including decision-quality and judgment-based assessments contribute substantially to overall predictive validity. The baseline argument for why measurement matters — and why cognitive performance assessment outperforms personality tests and interviews.
How it works — the decision journey
As an individual is assessed, our eye-tracking technology captures the entire cognitive process behind every choice, not just the outcome.
A structured decision environment with multiple pieces of information — some directly useful, some peripheral, some designed to compete for attention. Examples: a financial scenario with conflicting signals, a task prioritization screen, an attention challenge with distractors.
Scenario construction determines which cognitive signals become observable. Each game is designed with domain experts to ensure the decision environment mirrors the real context — making behavioral signals ecologically valid, not just measurable.
The candidate's first point of attention — automatic, unguarded, and consistent across contexts. Whether they start with the most relevant information or are drawn to the most prominent. The foundation for everything that follows.
The team
Grounded in behavioral economics, decision psychology, and neurocognitive science. Same research foundations as Kahneman, Tversky, and 100 years of I/O psychology — held to the same psychometric standards.
Specialists in the specific decision environments our games simulate — financial markets, credit risk, entrepreneurial judgment, and facility management. Domain knowledge is what makes scenarios ecologically valid, not just engaging.
Purpose-built eye-tracking software and behavioral analytics — capturing gaze patterns, fixation density, and micro-behavioral sequences during gameplay. Not off-the-shelf. The technical foundation that makes our signal possible.
Mindmarqs adds signal.
You decide.
We welcome conversations with psychometricians, researchers, and technically-minded buyers.