ABSTRACT: Defines a relationship between stimulus and response of "ideomotor
compatibility" as occurring to the extent that the stimulus resembles normally
occurring sensory feedback from the response (e.g., saying a word in response
to hearing it said). It is proposed that the stimulus of highly ideomotor-compatible
combinations should effectively select the response without burdening limited-capacity
decision processes of the CNS. Accordingly, (a) perfectly efficient time sharing
of 2 simultaneous decision tasks was predicted when both tasks were highly ideomotor
compatible, and (b) inefficient time sharing was expected when both tasks were
not highly ideomotor compatible. 8 undergraduates served in high and 8 in low
ideomotor compatibility conditions that required rapid independent decision responses
(spoken and manual) to 2 simultaneous stimuli (auditory and visual). The predicted
effect of the ideomotor-compatibility variation on time-sharing efficiency was
clearly confirmed.