Mirroring and the development of action understanding

Abstract

The discovery of mirror neurons in the monkey motor cortex has inspired wide-ranging hypotheses about the potential relationship between action control and social cognition. In this paper, we consider the hypothesis that this relationship supports the early development of a critical aspect of social understanding, the ability to analyse others' actions in terms of goals. Recent investigations of infant action understanding have revealed rich connections between motor development and the analysis of goals in others' actions. In particular, infants' own goal-directed actions influence their analysis of others' goals. This evidence indicates that the cognitive systems that drive infants' own actions contribute to their analysis of goals in others' actions. These effects occur at a relatively abstract level of analysis both in terms of the structure infants perceive in others' actions and relevant structure in infants' own actions. Although the neural bases of these effects in infants are not yet well understood, current evidence indicates that connections between action production and action perception in infancy involve the interrelated neural systems at work in generating planned, intelligent action.

What are you doing? How active and observational experience shape infants' action understanding

“…In the end, action understanding might emerge from a complex interaction of both processes, and examining how exactly these processes interact to bring about action understanding is an exciting research direction (cf. [124]). …”

Mirror neuron research: the past and the future

“…We gave ample space in this special issue to this topic [18][19][20][21][22]. It is highly debated whether the mirror system arose as the consequence of association learning or an evolutionary process that endowed a population of neurons with a mechanism necessary for accomplishing a specific function [20,23].…”

Behavioural Neurology of Personality Disorders: A Bi-dimensional Model

“…It is the function that later develops into imitation, motor learning, and even empathy. In this stage, mirroring is automatic and physiological but nevertheless a vital component of sensory-motor functioning [157][158][159]. Mirroring, especially as manifested in imitation, can be deficient in neurodevelopmental disorders such as severe learning disability and autism [160].…”