Effect-based action control

Markus Janczyk, Andrea Kiesel, Wilfried Kunde, Roland Pfister,

How do we transform subjective action goals into physical muscle activity? How do we bridge the gap between mind and body? Our research on these questions is settled in the framework of ideomotor theory, a classical philosophical approach to human action. According to this approach, actions are brought about by anticipating their sensory consequences which, in turn, addresses an action via bi-directional action-effect representations. Current projects aim at identifying the contributions of proximal and distal action effects to this process as well as the neurophysiological underpinnings of ideomotor action control. Furthermore, we investigate whether the usage of such ideomotor effect anticipations is moderated by the current intentional set (or: action control mode) of the actor  - i.e., whether physically equivalent actions might be controlled by functionally distinct mechanisms.

Kunde, W., Lozo,Lj., & Neumann, R. (2011). Effect-based control of facial expressions. Evidence from action-effect compatibility. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 820-826.

Pfister, R., Kiesel, A., & Melcher, T. (2010). Adaptive control of ideomotor effect anticipations. Acta Psychologica, 135, 316-322.

Janczyk, M., Skirde, S., Weigelt, M. & Kunde, W. (2009). Visual and tactile action effects determine bimanual coordination performance. Human Movement Science, 28, 437-449.