Ref Is *this* what you mean by "non-volitional" movement?

[Diane]

I confess to having been perpetually confused by the term "non-volitional" in your writing, Barrett.
Not that I didn't think it was intriguing, but just that I had no concrete conceptual basket in which to store the idea.

I found this today: Differences in Learning Volitional (Manual) and Non-Volitional (Posture) Aspects of a Complex Motor Skill in Young Adult Dyslexic and Skilled Readers (open access), and apart from the dyslexic versus skilled business going on in the paper, the categorical strategy for distinguishing volitional from non-volitional motor output became clear, finally. At least, I think it has.

I wanted to check with you first though, before I proceed any further.

[gilbert]

Diane, in my understanding of motor control the

balance and posture control system

has the implicit goals of:
1. Not falling over
2. Completing the volitional task successfully

If as Barrett says, ideomotion has the purposes of:
1. expressing us
2. comfort
It would seem to be different to me.

[Diane]

Gilbert, are these mutually exclusive?

[Barrett Dorko]

The phrase "without volition" is throughout Spitz's text and I always understood it to mean "without counscious plan or intent, unconsciously motivated."

I don't have a sense that this is in opposition to its common meaning.

[Mark Hollis]

So could it be thought of as volitional is the part of the movement that consciousness is attending to (the part of the movement that, when i do it , it appears to me to be 'the foregroundy/notable/contentual experience of movement') while nonvolitional is the part that the subconsciousness is attending to (the part of the movement that while still happening, and I could choose to attend to, my brain has prioritised as not currently sufficiently novel enough to attend to (the backgroundy/non-notable/contextual part))?

I know that when I think about it, it's hard to define and put a line through and say that (volitional) is on one side and this (nonvolitional) is on the other because in reality the brain is doing both (and so much more) simultaneously. I'm still re-pondering over (my brain is a tortoise on many things and has been circling this for 20 odd years) the relationalship difference of attention from consciousness that was raised in a post a few months ago and how the brain (of the movement experiencer) distinguishes that which is volitional from nonvolitional.

[Diane]

At the recent workshop in the UK, a participant who had had a fractured forearm, which was quite functional, although full of plates and screws, was lying prone with his arm hanging down. As I sat down to demonstrate a simple S-shaped skin stretch with him, his arm started moving and the moment I was planning to spend ended up being about a ten-minute dance. His sense of it was a resolving of a sensory image of a long metal rod or something that was inside. Entirely interoceptive, his image (as he described it later) changed to something else with less density and open spaces. I don't think he had been aware of moving, mainly at the elbow and forearm. His arm seemed quite a lot more pliable following.
I think that may have been ideomotor movement. If so, I think I may have finally (after lo, all these many years) figured out what it is and isn't. The movement isn't "un" conscious at all. It is merely non-verbal, but may be vividly imagic. If the mover allows his own sensory impression to do the guiding of movement, he will be
a) fully aware and tracking the sensation more than the movement itself - i.e., paying attention to the interoception not the proprioception
b) moving non-"volitionally", in that he won't feel like inhibiting it
c) the movement will run its course and end at some point, with some sort of preferred (by the brain) resolution (noticeable in the periphery).

[Bas Asselbergs]

Hi Diane: I totally agree that non-volitional is not non-conscious.
Your a, b,c are bang-on as far as I am concerned.