Many of our actions may seem so mundane that one can easily overlook the complexity of underlying psychological processes. Perhaps the most essential, yet least obvious process concerns the ´translation´ of goals into actions. How does it happen that mental states reflecting our intentions and desires are so effortlessly transformed into behaviours?
The ideomotor theory assumes that learning of goal-direct actions proceeds in two steps. First, we experience changes in the environment (i.e., effects) that follow from random movements. Such knowledge about specific movement-effect relations forms the basis for goal-directed actions. Second, the anticipation of effects leads to voluntary movements. Hence, associations between movements and effects are bidirectional. Consequently, thinking of an effect is sufficient to re-activate previously learned motor commands. Accordingly, goal-directed actions are preceded by anticipatory activation of sensory effects.

In the Lab, we investigate the psychological mechanisms that allow for effect-based control of actions. We study how people learn to act goal-directed and how anticipation of sensory effects enables goal-directed actions. In addition, our research addresses the role of effect-based action control in social interactions.

Selected publications:

• Pfister, R., Dignath, D., Hommel, B., & Kunde, W. (2013). It takes two to imitate: Anticipation and imitation in social interaction. Psychological Science, 24. 2117-2121.
   
• Dignath, D., Pfister, R., Eder, A. B., Kiesel, A. & Kunde, W. (2014) Representing the hyphen in bi-directional action-effect associations: Automatic integration of time intervals into cognitive action structures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 40(6), 1701-1712.
   
• Eder, A. B., & Dignath, D. (2016). Influence of verbal instructions on effect-based action control. Psychological Research, 81(2), 355-365.
   
• Dignath, D., & Janczyk, M. (2017). Anticipation of delayed action-effect: Learning when an effect occurs, without knowing what this effect will be. Psychological Research 81 (5), 1072–1083.
   
• Dignath, D., Kiesel, A., Frings, C., & Pastötter, B. (2020) Electrophysiological evidence for action-effect prediction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(6), 1148–1155.
   
• Dignath, D.*, Born, G.*, Eder, A., Topolinski, S., & Pfister, R. (in press). Imitation of action-effects increase social affiliation. Psychological Research. (* = shared first authorship)