Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 17, 2026
07:43
A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies
Published on: August 4, 2023
Short-term action-effect bindings encode perceptual transitions rather than perceptual end-states
Moritz Schaaf1, Solveig Tonn2, Wilfried Kunde3
1Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Johanniterufer 15, 54290, Trier, Germany. moritz.schaaf@uni-trier.de.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|July 15, 2026
Summary
Ideomotor learning, which involves anticipating action-outcomes, appears to focus on the transition between states, not just the final outcome. This suggests motor control mechanisms prioritize changes over static end-states.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
Background:
- Ideomotor effect anticipation traditionally focuses on desired end-states.
- Recent theories propose that anticipation relies on transitions between current and desired states.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether ideomotor learning mechanisms are sensitive to transitions or end-states.
- To determine the role of transition sensitivity in action-effect binding.
Main Methods:
- Three preregistered experiments using a prime-probe design.
- Participants performed actions producing visual effects (prime).
- Probe stimuli either matched/mismatched end-states, with matched/mismatched transitions (onset/offset stimuli).
Main Results:
- Action-effect binding, a precursor to ideomotor learning, was observed only when probe transitions repeated prime transitions.
- No evidence for binding when only end-states matched but transitions differed.
Conclusions:
- Ideomotor learning mechanisms are primarily sensitive to the transitions of action-effect sequences.
- This transition-based sensitivity influences action-effect binding, impacting motor learning.
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