A New Ideomotor Theory of Voluntary Control

Abstract

A century ago, psychology was defined as the study of three core topics: conation (i. e., volition or will), cognition, and emotion (Hilgard, 1980). But since the advent of behaviorism and logical positivism, the first of these topics—the question of volition, or will—has been almost entirely neglected. Cognition and, to some extent, emotion have been revived by the “cognitive revolution in psychology,” which has made it possible to approach these topics as inferential constructs that can be used with scientific rigor if they are properly operation-alized (Baars, 1986; see Ekman, 1984). But until very recently, no systematic attempt has been made to approach volition with modern theoretical and empirical tools (Baars, 1988; Kimble & Perlmutter, 1970). Still, this missing element is being increasingly recognized. George A. Miller, one of the foremost leaders in the cognitive shift in psychology, has called volition one of the few “constitutive topics” of psychology—one of those central questions that define its natural domain:

[Volition] keeps coming back to me as a critically important thing. I think ‘will’ is terribly important.... As I used to say to my students, I can foul up any of your experiments by an act of will. Now why doesn’t that make ‘will’ more important than the stuff you’re studying? (in Baars, 1986, p. 221)

This chapter can be read in conjunction with my book A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (1988), which develops in greater detail many of the points made here (see especially Chapters 7–9).