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Unifying Social Cognition

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Mirror Neuron Systems

Part of the book series: Contemporary Neuroscience ((CNEURO))

Abstract

Humans have an almost uncanny capacity: they can simply observe other conspecifics and get deep intuitive insights into their minds. Since the discovery of mirror neurons, this capacity seems a little less mysterious. Here, we will review evidence that suggests that when we witness the actions, sensations, and emotions of other individuals, we activate our premotor, parietal, somatosensory, and emotional structures as if we were performing similar actions or experiencing similar emotions and sensations. These activations are stronger in more empathic individuals. These activations are stronger in more empathic individuals. This suggests that empathy relies, at least in part, on our brain's spontaneous transformation of what we see in what we would have felt.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term ‘goals’ will be used throughout this chapter with the meaning of ‘what is being achieved.’ In that sense, the goal of grasping a glass is to take possession of this object in order to use it in some way. In this very pragmatic sense, a goal does not apply higher psychological concepts such as a sense of agency etc. It is a useful concept though, as it expresses what is common to performing a certain action (e.g., grasping) independently of how it is done (with your mouth, foot, hand, or a tool). Naively, one might wonder if such a concept is not mentalistic, detached from neuroscientific evidence. This though seems not to be the case: signing a sheet of paper with your foot or hand (Rijntjes et al., 1999), for instance, relies on the same location of the premotor cortex, suggesting that the premotor cortex indeed represents goals, which can then be flexibly mapped onto the most suited effector depending on environmental contingencies.

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Acknowledgments

CK was financed by a VIDI grant by NWO and a Marie Curie Excellence Grant. We thank Marco del Giudice for help in developing the idea of canalized Hebbian learning, and Marc Thioux for helpful comments on the manuscript.

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  1. BCN Neuro-Imaging-Centre, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Christian Keysers

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  2. Valeria Gazzola
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Correspondence to Christian Keysers .

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  1. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Jaime A. Pineda

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© 2008 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Keysers, C., Gazzola, V. (2008). Unifying Social Cognition. In: Pineda, J.A. (eds) Mirror Neuron Systems. Contemporary Neuroscience. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-479-7_1

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