An analysis of ideomotor action

This article presents a framework based on the work of R. H. Lotze (1852), W. James (1890), and A. G. Greenwald (1970) for understanding ideomotor actions that tend to arise when individuals watch others perform certain actions. Two principles of ideomotor action induction are distinguished: perceptual induction, in which people tend to perform the movements they see, and intentional induction, in which people tend to perform movements suited to achieve what they would like to see. In 3 experiments, ideomotor hand, head, and foot movements were studied while participants watched a ball traveling toward a target. Results showed strong support for intentional induction, weaker support for perceptual induction, and a strong impact of the effector studied. The representational basis of action induction (stimulus vs. goal representations) and the automaticity of the underlying processing (task-dependent vs. task-independent induction) were considered.