Psychology 1009 Lecture Notes - Lecture 39: Ideomotor Phenomenon, Facilitated Communication, Terence Hines
Document Summary
Ideomotor effect is a phenomenon where the body reacts reflectively to an idea without the individual making a conscious decision to act. An example of this phenomenon is the unconscious production of tears by the body when reacting to powerful emotions. Other effects that are attributed to this phenomenon include the ouija boards, dowsing, automatic writing and facilitated communication. This phenomenon has been attributed by mystics to a supernatural or paranormal force. Ideomotor response, which is sometimes referred to as ideomotive reflex (imr), is a concept derived in hypnosis or psychological research. Ideo represents an idea or a mental representation, while motor refers to a muscular activity. Ideomotor response refers to he processes whereby thoughts or mental images result in involuntary muscular response or reflexive. Extraordinary or paranormal human activity such as psychokinesis and esp has been attributed in psychology discourse to the ideomotor effect. The objective of this discussion is to critically analyze the justification of this association.
