Ideomotor Response
What do handwriting analysis, the Ouija board, pendulums, and dowsing have in common with human experience design? Answer: the ideomotor reponse.
Ideomotor action describes motions that are made without conscious volition. More importantly, these motions are made in accordance with belief and expectation. The movements might be simple, such as a twitch, or extremely complex - like handwriting.
The ideomotor response was found by some famous scientists during the late 19th and early 20th century. During that time, pendulums were used by many chemists to do chemical analysis. They would swing certain was to supposedly describe the chemical makeup.
What scientists, such as Faraday and Chevral found, is that the operators were not being deceptive and weren’t consciously controlling the action of the pendulum. However, they found that the hand holding the pendulum made tiny unconscious movements that would amplify and direct the swing of the pendulum.
Think back to when you learned how to write cursive letters at school. At first you had to concentrate to make your letters look like the copybook pictures. Eventually you learned to write and no longer have to consciously think about making the letters. When you write, consciously you probably only think about the words you want, and your unconscious mind makes the letters.
Handwriting analysis (graphology) works because the way you make your letters is affected by your brain state, experiences, emotions, knowledge and other unconscious factors. Try this: really quickly write the names of three people - two you love and one you have trouble with. Don’t consciously try to affect your handwriting. I’ll bet that, even without training in graphology, you’ll see a marked difference.
Mechanically, in order to draw a curve (or make a curvy letter) you need relaxed muscles. In order to draw sharp angles, the muscles have to tense. Psychological tension transfers to physical tension rather directly. In fact it’s been said that there is a physical reaction in the body to every thought or emotion in the mind.
I believe it’s important for human experience design to understand the ideomotor response for a few reasons:
- It’s important to understand how people learn to do physical tasks, and how our ideas and emotions affect those tasks after they are learned.
- It’s important to understand that the reverse action is also true - forcing people to move as if under stress can create stress responses in the brain.
- Ideomotor response is affected by physical and neurological disability, which may have implications for accessibility.
