Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In physiology, a term applied by Dr. Carpenter to muscular movements resulting from complete engrossment by an idea. These he regarded as automatic, although originating in the cerebrum.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Physiol.) Applied to those actions, or muscular movements, which are automatic expressions of dominant ideas, rather than the result of distinct volitional efforts, as the act of expressing the thoughts in speech, or in writing, while the mind is occupied in the composition of the sentence.
Etymologies
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Examples
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It means that the mental impression made upon him by the welcome and appetizing spectacle has caused a secretion of saliva and of gastric juice; that is to say, the brain has, through the ideo-motor set of nerves, sent a message which has dilated the vessels around the salivary and gastric glands, increased the flow of blood through them and quickened their secretion.
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Such a type of action is described as ideo-motor action.
Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education Ontario. Ministry of Education
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Hence _the action is largely or wholly ideo-motor and but slightly or not at all deliberate_.
The Mind and Its Education George Herbert Betts 1901
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Most of the habitual actions to which we are trained are of this ideo-motor sort.
Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals William James 1876
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Such a case of action from a single idea has been distinguished from more complex cases by the name of 'ideo-motor' action, meaning action without express decision or effort.
Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals William James 1876
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Abstractly, the law of ideo-motor action is true; but in the concrete our fields of consciousness are always so complex that the inhibiting margin keeps the centre inoperative most of the time.
Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals William James 1876
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"Here, then, it is seen that we have a mechanism in the body, known to physiologists as the ideo-motor, or sensory motor system of nerves, which can produce, without the consciousness of the individual and automatically, a series of muscular contractions.
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