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Mirror Neurons and the Neural Exploitation Hypothesis: From Embodied Simulation to Social Cognition

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Mirror Neuron Systems

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

Abstract

The relevance of the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys and of the mirror neuron system in humans to a neuroscientific account of primates’ social cognition and its evolution is discussed. It is proposed that mirror neurons and the functional mechanism they underpin, embodied simulation, can ground within a unitary neurophysiological explanatory framework important aspects of human social cognition. A neurophysiological hypothesis – the “neural exploitation hypothesis” – is introduced to explain how key aspects of human social cognition are underpinned by brain mechanisms originally evolved for sensory-motor integration. It is proposed that these mechanisms were later on exapted as new neurofunctional architecture for thought and language, while retaining their original functions as well. By neural exploitation, social cognition and language can be linked to the experiential domain of action.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Studies conducted on human infants have consistently revealed a tight relationship between motor experience and the capacity of evaluating the goal-relatedness of the actions of others (see Woodward 1998; Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, 2005; Sommerville & Woodward, 2005; Falck-Ytter, Gredeback, & von Hofsten, 2006).

  2. 2.

    It is worth noting how long it took before a similar perspective emerged in the field of cognitive psychology (see Gibson 1979; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Glenberg 1997; see also Gallese 2000, 2003c).

  3. 3.

    To which extent these levels can be conceived as distinctly mapped in the brain is not so obvious yet.

  4. 4.

    A discussion of the facilitatory or inhibitory nature of the specific modulation of the motor system during language processing is beyond the scope of this article, and therefore will not be dealt with here.

  5. 5.

    In the present paper I exclusively focus on action. Other studies, though, also show the involvement of the sensory-motor system in the mapping of other abstract domains, like the case of time mapped onto spatial metaphors (see Boroditsky, 2000; Boroditsky & Ramscar, 2002).

  6. 6.

    On average, the response of mirror neurons in monkeys is stronger during action execution than during action observation.

  7. 7.

    Establishing a relation between the motor system and the structure of language is by no means a new idea. Lashley (1951) and Marsden (1984), for example, proposed a link between syntax and the action sequencing function of the basal ganglia. A discussion of the role played in syntax by sub-cortical motor centers and the premotor cortex is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is worth noting that the present hypothesis is – at least partly – compatible with the procedural hypothesis of grammar proposed by Ullman (2001) according to which, aspects of grammar are subserved by a frontal/basal-ganglia procedural memory system that also underlies cognitive and motor skills.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by MIUR (Ministero Italiano dell’Università e della Ricerca) and by the EU grants NESTCOM and DISCOS.

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  1. Department of Neuroscience, Section of Physiology, University of Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy

    Vittorio Gallese

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  1. Vittorio Gallese
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Correspondence to Vittorio Gallese .

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

    Jaime A. Pineda

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Gallese, V. (2008). Mirror Neurons and the Neural Exploitation Hypothesis: From Embodied Simulation to Social Cognition. In: Pineda, J.A. (eds) Mirror Neuron Systems. Contemporary Neuroscience. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-479-7_8

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