ESSCS St. Maximin, Provence April 1996
William James developed an account of 'ideomotor action' on lines similar to those earlier proposed by Lotze. Lotze had suggested that the mental image of a definite movement had attached to it as a necessary result the appearance of that definite movement. James termed 'ideomotor response' the experience that when the subject vividly imagines moving his body he has a marked tendency to do what he is thinking. "Every representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object. We think the act and it is done. An anticipatory image of the sensorial consequences of a movement is the only psychic state which introspection lets us discern as the forerunner of our voluntary acts. Movement is the natural immediate effect of feeling". James went on to suggest how one may experience this for oneself: "Try to feel as if you were crooking your little finger, whilst keeping it straight. In a minute it will fairly tingle with the imaginary change of position; yet it will not sensibly move, because it's not really moving is also a part of what you have in mind. Drop this idea, think of the movement purely and simply, with all brakes off, and presto! it takes place with no effort at all." William James' introspective account has been complemented by approaches in terms of cerebral motor control by, for example, Pribram and Jeannerod and very recently given experimental validity by work of brain researchers using PET and MRI.