Have I Got Something to Tell You: Ideational Dynamics and Message Production

People think of things to say that they have never thought (or heard, or seen) before. Ideational dynamics is concerned with the processes that give rise to the ideas that shape overt verbal and nonverbal behavior. The focus of this article is on three specific problems of ideational dynamics: How do message-content ideations arise? What is the nature of these ideations as cognitive entities? and How do these ideations come to be manifested in overt behavior? This article overviews the implications of one particular theory, second generation action assembly theory (AAT2), for addressing these problems. AAT2 suggests that message-content ideations need not be propositional, that the abstract conceptions one is conscious of may not be related to the propositional content of his or her speech, that abstract conceptions need not be conscious to impact overt behavior, that message-relevant ideations may fail to be expressed in actual behavior, and that message-relevant ideations are malleable on a time scale shorter than is required for their enactment. 10.1177/0261927X05284481