Talk:Ideomotor effect

Clever Hans effect
Please expand on both the experimental proof of the effect and the various places it appears. I am guessing that the clinical studies had some very interesting nuances. The ideomotor effect has debunked plenty of phenomena, each of which may be discussed. I have heard that Clever Hans, called "the smartest horse in the world," responded to the ideomotor effect of its owner. Teply 00:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you are thinking of the Clever Hans effect? Deleuze 17:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the Clever Hans effect and the ideomotor effect are two very separate phenomena. Jeff Silvers 10:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you for pointing this out. Teply 03:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer" - " he discovered that he would produce these cues involuntarily regardless of whether he wished to exhibit or suppress them" - so how is that a different effect - it's just a horse reacting, not a pendulum reacting !


 * Psychophysiological Thought Reading describes a book - H.J. Burlingame's "How To Read People's Minds" - 'There is also a fascinating section on training your dog on how to read minds.'


 * Even a babe-in-arms will stop crying if you pick it up, but start again if you lean on a wall. Even if you try to stand very still, the baby is aware of your involuntary balancing movements.
 * --195.137.93.171 05:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unbalanced
The current article focuses on the implausible "paranormal or supernatural" attributions of ideomotor behaviour. While outside of mainstream, ideomotor signaling has been used in the health profession. --Comaze 06:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's been edited since the above posting, but to me the article explains a scientific phenomenon that might be used to explain certain paranormal phenomena. To me the article is quite balanced from a scientific standpoint (as it should be) --Samhaynn 12/28/06 2202

I think Comaze was referring to alternative medicine practitioners claiming to use ideomotor signaling to communicate with the "unconscious mind." I'm dubious of the method myself, but I can imagine those wanting to know more about these claims consulting wikipedia. I found a reference on the web and added a short paragraph on it in what I hope is an objective style. I also removed the Unbalanced tag, as I believe I addressed Comaze's concerns. Subversified 08:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Carpenter
I have found the Carpenter's paper but I think that it is not discussing about Ouija like this edit, but my english is not good, if someone can confirm by looking at http://www.sgipt.org/medppp/psymot/carp1852.htm. --Akkeron 22:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Firstly, Akkeron, This is the "correct" paper.
 * Due to the fact that most of the literature of this period was written in rather ornate language, it may not be immediately obvious, that it was, in fact, referring most specifically to the Ouija, and more generally to other ideomotor phenomena such as the responses of a "divining rod".
 * It was to this sort of "phenomena" (i.e., the "class of phenomena" referred to in the first and second lines of his paper) that his entire paper was directed.
 * Namely, he was supplying an explanation for the presence of movement that was entirely unconscious (i.e., "independent of volition"). His paper was simply providing a brain-based explanation for the phenomenon that had been first offered, to my recollection, by Francis Bacon in his, I think, Organon, where he speaks of the exercise of suspending a ring held by a thread in the centre of a tube thatt iis somethiing like 15cm in diameter and then "thinking" it to move East-West, and then later, "thinking" it to move North-South.
 * Part of the problem is that various people, driven by various pet theories keep adding ambiguous and irrelevant pieces to the Wikepedia article:
 * The ideomotor effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously (i.e., without conscious awareness). Automatic writing, dowsing, facilitated communication, and Ouija boards have also been attributed to the effect of this phenomena. Mystics have often attributed this motion to paranormal or supernatural force. Many subjects are unconvinced that their actions are originating solely from within themselves.


 * The definition is rather wrong; and, moreover, the reference to nonsense such as "facilitated communication" -- where the operator is in direct physical contact with the subject is simply a blatant misrepresentation of the facts of the matter (simply because there are no ideomotor responses involved).
 * At the time of his writing, Carpenter was not writing to "explode" beliefs about Ouija Boards (as that had already been done, by others, to the satisfaction of his audience), he was simply pproviding an explanation of just how these sorts of phenomena could be manifested by honest well-meaning individuals who had no conscious intention to deceive either themslves or others.
 * That is why the term "suggestion" appears in the title of the paper!
 * He was taking the view expressed by the philosopher Thomas Brown (before him), and the psychologist Edward Titchener (after him) that, whenever the mind was filled with a suggestion, particular responses to whatever the mind was holding would ensue. And, moreover, the extent to which such a response was manifested was taken to be an index of the extennt to which whatever had filled the mind, was indeed suggestive.
 * So, in summary, Carpenter's paper is about movement.
 * And, moreover, he decided to label his explanation of the motions that are generated by (in this case "unconscious) thoughts -- and, therefore, Carpenter decided to label his explanation of the existence of these unconscious-thought-generated-ideomotor-responses [N.B. these are "ideomotor responses", they are not, as this article supposes, "ideomotor effects", in the same way that one should never talk of "placebo effects", only "placebo responses", because it is the subject that has the response] "the ideo-motor principle of action" (see p.153).
 * By the way, Carpenter's last sentence also implicitly refers to Ouija Boards (as it does to divining rods and pendulums).
 * As a last point, and sorry to go on at such a length, it may also be of some interest to you that, in this paper, Carpenter is offering an explanation of the phenomenon; and, the importance of the paper is his introduction of, and the positioning of the new term "ideo-motor".
 * By contrast, the outstanding work of Chevreul was a brilliant experiment that very definitely proved that these ideomotor responses, belonged to the subject, and not to the Ouija Board, the diviner's rod, the dowser's pendulum, etc.
 * The fact that these "idomotor responses" are an important, conventional mechanism of communication between hypnotic subjects and professional hypnotherapists of material lying below a subject's normal conscious awareness gives further support to Carpenter's position that these physical actions are in some way related to (and a direct consequence of) a subject's mental content.
 * I hope that this proves useful to youLindsay658 05:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Further note. ..
 * The citation for Cheuvrel is:
 * Cheuvrel. Michel E., De la Baguette Divinatoire et du Pendule Dit Explorateur (On the Divining Rod and the So-called Exploratory Pendulum), Maillet-Bachelier, Paris, 1854.
 * The eminence of Chevreul as a scientist -- and the manner in which he so emphatically demonstrated that the impetus for the movement of a hand-held pendulum was in the subject's mind and not in the bob of the pendulum itself -- soon led hypnotists and experimental psychologists to talk of "the Chevreul Pendulum Illusion".
 * Even today, it is a widespread convention amongst professional hypnotherapists to speak of the device they use in their hypnotherapeutic practice (as a mechanism of communication with their subject's "inner mind"; e.g, Easton and Shor), in terms of it being a "Chevreul's Pendulum" in order to make it sound as if the object in question was far more "reputable", "legitimate", and "scientific" -- and as well, that it was an entirely different physical object (which it was not) -- from the "disreputable", "inappropriate", and "pseudoscientific" pendulums that were used by, say, dowser's and by mystics.
 * Hope that helps Lindsay658 17:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for all your explanations. Akkeron 17:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Merger Proposal
Is Ideo motor response a duplicate page ? I've tried to propose a merger ... redirect ? Or should the 'paranormal' stuff be there, separate from the scientific stuff ? (... and who knows which is which ?) --195.137.93.171 04:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed above suggestion that 'Response' is better than 'Effect', so maybe the merger should go the other way ! Presumably Lindsay658's implicit point is that Placebos have no effect by definition, so 'Placebo Effect' is an Oxymoron! However this may be a False Analogy: this Ideomotor thing is caused by the subject's subconscious, is it not ? Or perhaps I misunderstood the reasoning - "because it is the subject that has the response" meant nothing to me ! --195.137.93.171 11:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The topics are linked, which is helpful. If "response" is to an outside force (finger movements) or inside (tears), what is "effect"? It does seem redundant, unless other English speakers have a different slant on the word, in which case it would be worth keeping two definitions. Otherwise one entry for "response" seems best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.166.226.83 (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I think Phenomenon will include both terms.Hesham4488 (talk) 01:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Practical Examples
"... tears are produced by the body unconsciously in reaction to the emotion of sadness ..." - is that strictly a motor effect ? I don't know much about tear secretion !

"... convincing volunteers to perform some action without consciously deciding to do so ..." - I would have thought this was hypnotic suggestion, not Ideomotor effect ? Stage hypnotists generally persuade you to run around acting like a chicken, not twitch an eyelid or tilt a hand. I would have thought it was different in kind, not just in degree. Many doubt its authenticity [citation needed]. It is also artificially induced, not naturally spontaneous.

I am intrigued by effects that may be commonplace examples of Ideomotor effect - where we only think about the effect we want to achieve, not what we do to achieve it:

1) Lead-and-follow co-operation in partner dancing - people just do it naturally, without knowing how they do it. Some work has been done by Sommer Gentry that suggests reaction times are much faster than possible for conscious reaction, yet I don't think it is a conditioned reflex response ?

2) Riding a bicycle - Countersteering - most people believe they "turn the handlebars clockwise to turn right", but a clockwise torque will cause a lean to the left and therefore a turn to the left (or a crash) !

3) Touch-typing ? Not my field of expertise, but I'm using a Spanish Keyboard with a British English driver to suit my finger-memory !

Maybe these are just conditioned responses ? These get really interesting if you ever have to try teach them to someone who doesn't "just get it" naturally !

--195.137.93.171 04:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Dianetics and Scientology E-Meter
I had written something to help people understand what I feel happens with the e-meter that's seen at tables set up in public as well as the so-called "spiritual tool" Scientology uses to undergo auditing and security checks, etc. This is in fact the ideomotor effect and response. It makes people think they can "see their thoughts." The references here if you read closely may help to explain further. I will be adding something on these pages, but wanted you to read what I've researched and found. I am not a doctor, but the research is helpful, imo. The link with the information:

http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hubbard-the-hypnotist9.htm

Imagine a Letter from L Ron Hubbard

....

In 1907, Sidis discovered that physical stimulus or noises or words made the needle on the galvanometer move. Then he discovered that the same needle on the instrument moved just by thinking that thought, of the same stimuli, noise or words:

"The experimenter then ascertained that actual irritation (stimulus) was not essential to these results, but the presentation of the proposed stimulus to the imagination also brought about similar deviations in the galvanometer. He stated, furthermore, that the recollection of some fear, fright or joy, in general any kind of strong emotion, produced the same result. He also noted that the emotion of expectant attention or anticipation had a marked effect upon the galvanometer." (1)

After several years and scientific investigation using these instruments, Sidis and colleagues like Wundt, (who I also say bad things about) concluded:

"He describes the methods of working with the subconscious, especially as developed in his Psychology of Suggestion. The association method and graphic methods (sphygmograph, plethysmograph, pneumograph, galvanometer) are of no value clinically...Introspection and observation, the study of dream states, the use of hypnotic and hypnoidal states and their methods of employment are given special attention. The role of suggestibility is stressed." (2)

---also, the e-meter Hubbard coined as a spiritual tool, was originally patented by Volney Mathison who also wrote previous books on the use pendulum. http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hubbard-the-hypnotist4.htm

Maureen D (talk) 23:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

as told by scientology practitioners...
 * The ideomotor response being reliant on "suggestion" is helped along with a small amount of electricity. This enhances the suggestibility, makes people feel good about seeing thoughts...

http://www.lermanet.com/endorphin-emeter.htm#endorphin based on fMRI results.... http://www.lermanet.com/e-metershort.htm

George Estabroooks wrote about electricity and suggestibility...

http://www.lermanet.com/emeter/hypnotism-today-1947/index.htm Most recently a method of giving electric shock termed "electronarcosis" has been developed at the California Institute of Technology. With a current of much less intensity, the shock is applied for seven or eight minutes, producing a sleep-like state.... Basically, direct hypnotic suggestion of cure is much like faith healing. The patient is benefited principally because lie accepts the suggestion of cure. Unlike faith healing, suggestion is applied scientifically according to its laws and is aimed directly at the difficulty, its force increased because of the increased suggestibility of the patient under hypnosis.

Maureen D (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)]

Source for this article
Mirror at http://www.goallab.nl/publications/documents/Aarts,%20Custers,%20Marien%20(2008)%20-%20preparing%20and%20motivating%20behavior%20outside%20awareness.pdf MartinPoulter (talk) 17:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)