Perception and action as one: Re-integrating research on human action through event files

Stimulus-response and action-effect links are discussed in several paradigms in different fields of psychology and treated as separate conceptual entities. We criticize this separation. Ideomotor approaches like the Theory of Event Coding (Hommel et al., 2001) provide measures to unite and harmonize these research fields. In particular, the concept of event files, internal representations, that code stimulus, response, and effect features can connect still separate fields on human action in cognitive psychology. This is even more obvious, as the original ideomotor theory never separated perception and action the way it is done in contemporary research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).