An ideomotor approach to cognition

In this review, we develop an ideomotor approach for two distinct domains of human cognition: symbolic communication, and the representation of the future. According to ideomotor theory, actions are principally represented via the expected perceptual consequences they aim to generate in the environment. In this view, if a person wishes to cut a tomato, the action representation is based more on the cut tomato (the expected result) than on the movement of cutting (the action itself). The present review suggests that a similar mechanism is at work in symbolic communication and representations of the future. We propose that people understand each other via the expected effect of their actions in the environment, and that the intention to do something in the far future may be represented principally by way of such expected effects. We extend this theoretical perspective to human language, and propose a comparative analysis between human and non-human animals for the study of representations of the future.