Where do action goals come from? Evidence for spontaneous action-effect binding in infants

One of the great questions in psychology concerns how we develop to become intentional agents. Ideomotor theory suggests that intentional actions depend on, and emerge from the automatic acquisition of bidirectional action-effect associations: perceiving an action-effect sequence creates an integrat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Frontiers in psychology Vol. 1; p. 201
Main Authors:	Verschoor, Stephan, Weidema, Maaike, Biro, Szilvia, Hommel, Bernhard
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 01-01-2010 Frontiers Media S.A
Subjects:	Action control action representation action/ perception cognitive development goal-directed action Infancy Psychology action representation action–effects goal-directed action cognitive development infancy action/perception action control
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	One of the great questions in psychology concerns how we develop to become intentional agents. Ideomotor theory suggests that intentional actions depend on, and emerge from the automatic acquisition of bidirectional action-effect associations: perceiving an action-effect sequence creates an integrated representation that can be employed for action control in the opposite order, selecting an action by anticipating its effect. We provide first evidence for the spontaneous acquisition of bidirectional action-effect associations in 9- 12-, and 18-month-olds, suggesting that the mechanism underlying action-effect integration is in place at the latest around 9 months of age.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 This article was submitted to Frontiers in Cognition, a specialty of Frontiers in Psychology. Edited by: Wilfried Kunde, Julius-Maximilians-Universitaet Wuerzurg, Germany Reviewed by: Marc Grosjean, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Germany; Birgit Elsner, University of Potsdam, Germany
ISSN:	1664-1078 1664-1078
DOI:	10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00201