Abstract: There are two kinds of human beings’ daily actions. One is a kind of reaction to external stimuli in a bottom-up mode, which could also be called sensorimotor mode; the other is that the presentation of action was intention-based and driven by intention in people’s mind, and actions were executed in a top-down mode for specific effects or goals, which could also be called ideomotor mode. Ideomotor theory has been through a long evolution. Lots of behavioral and neuroscience evidence found in the general action imitation and general action research has already proved the hypothesis of ideomotor theory and the two mechanisms of it(common coding and mirror neurons). Ideomotor theory is significant in linking up perception and action, according to which the researchers put forward some new perspectives in this area, including the shared circuits model(SCM). Besides, ideomotor theory also stressed the important position of goal and anticipation. It suggested that future studies should provide findings that the path between action and perception and proximal effects of action.

Key words: ideomotor, sensorimotor, action imitation, common coding, mirror neurons