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Scientific investigation[edit]
The ouija phenomenon is considered by the scientific community to be the result of the ideomotor response. Michael Faraday first described this effect in 1853, while investigating table-turning.

Various studies have been conducted, recreating the effects of the ouija board in the lab and showing that, under laboratory conditions, the subjects were moving the planchette involuntarily. A 2012 study found that when answering yes or no questions, ouija use was significantly more accurate than guesswork, suggesting that it might draw on the unconscious mind. Skeptics have described ouija board users as 'operators'. Some critics have noted that the messages ostensibly spelled out by spirits were similar to whatever was going through the minds of the subjects. According to professor of neurology Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003):

The planchette is guided by unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table movement. Nonetheless, in both cases, the illusion that the object (table or planchette) is moving under its own control is often extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that spirits are truly at work ... The unconscious muscle movements responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena seen at seances are examples of a class of phenomena due to what psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual's normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions.

Some involuntary movements are known as “Automatism ”. This is what the theory of the ideomotor phenomenon is based on. Automatism can be defined as carrying out a task without the feeling of doing so. An example of automatism is when two people are moving the planchette but neither of them consciously move it. Both believe that the other player is driving the planchette. These moments of automatism are not unnoticed subconscious actions; they are measurable events that you consciously respond to.

In the case of a Oujia board, the feeling of lack of control one feels during automatism is what leads to the illusion of supernatural movement. One thinks that they aren’t moving it, and yet the planchette is still moving, which feeds into the idea of supernatural interference.

This correlates with the ideomotor phenomenon because both rely on unconscious movement. The difference is that the ideomotor phenomenon is based on the idea that just the idea that something can happen tricks the brain into doing it. For example, thinking about not moving the planchette leads to the possibility of the planchette moving, which then makes someone unconsciously move the planchette.