Expression of nonconscious knowledge by ideomotor
actions
Helene L. Gauchou, Ronald A. Rensink, and
Sidney Fels, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, Canada.
Consciousness and Cognition, 21: 976-982. [pdf]
Ideomotor
actions are behaviors that are unconsciously initiated and express a thought
rather than a response to a sensory stimulus. The question examined here is
whether ideomotor actions can also express nonconscious knowledge. We investigated
this via the use of implicit long-term semantic memory, which is not available
to conscious recall. We compared accuracy of answers to yes / no questions
using both volitional report and ideomotor response (Ouija board response). Results show that when participants
believed they knew the answer, responses in the two modalities were similar.
But when they believed they were guessing, accuracy was at chance for
volitional report (50%), but significantly higher for Ouija response (65%).
These results indicate that implicit semantic memory can be expressed through
ideomotor actions. They also suggest that this approach can provide an
interesting new methodology for studying implicit processes in cognition.