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 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.

The neural substrate of the ideomotor principle: an event-related fMRI analysis.

The present fMRI study sought to investigate the neural basis of perceiving learned action effects and thereby to test for hypotheses based on the ideomotor principle. For this purpose, we had subjects undergo a two-phase experimental procedure comprising an acquisition and a test phase, the latter administered inside the MR scanner. During the acquisition phase, free-choice button presses were contingently followed by one of two tones of different pitch which thereby should become "learned action effects".

Developmental changes in oculomotor control and working-memory efficiency.

In the present study, we examined the developmental changes in the efficiency of saccadic inhibitory control. More specifically, the contribution of age-related changes in working-memory engagement was investigated. We manipulated the efficiency of inhibitory oculomotor control in antisaccade tasks by using fixation-offset conditions, which are supposed to affect inhibitory demands, and by adding increasing working-memory loads to the antisaccade task.

Language and action control: the acquisition of action goals in early childhood.

This study examined the role of verbal labeling in 4-year-old children's acquisition of action-effect learning. The acquisition of action-effect associations was tested by having children first perform a two-choice key-pressing task in which each key press was followed by an effect (i.e.

Development of the acquisition and control of action-effect associations.

Voluntary action is anticipatory and, hence, must depend on associations between actions and their perceivable effects. We studied the acquisition of action-effect associations in 4-5-vs. 7-year-old children.