Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and LanguageThe emergence of language, social intelligence, and tool development are what made homo sapiens sapiens differentiate itself from all other biological species in the world. The use of language and the management of social and instrumental skills imply an awareness of intention and the consideration that one faces another individual with an attitude analogical to that of one's own. The metaphor of 'mirror' aptly comes to mind.Recent investigations have shown that the human ability to 'mirror' other's actions originates in the brain at a much deeper level than phenomenal awareness. A new class of neurons has been discovered in the premotor area of the monkey brain: 'mirror neurons'. Quite remarkably, they are tuned to fire to the enaction as well as observation of specific classes of behavior: fine manual actions and actions performed by mouth. They become activated independent of the agent, be it the self or a third person whose action is observed. The activation in mirror neurons is automatic and binds the observation and enaction of some behavior by the self or by the observed other. The peculiar first-to-third-person 'intersubjectivity' of the performance of mirror neurons and their surprising complementarity to the functioning of strategic communicative face-to-face (first-to-second person) interaction may shed new light on the functional architecture of conscious vs. unconscious mental processes and the relationship between behavioral and communicative action in monkeys, primates, and humans. The present volume discusses the nature of mirror neurons as presented by the research team of Prof. Giacomo Rizzolatti (University of Parma), who originally discovered them, and the implications to our understanding of the evolution of brain, mind and communicative interaction in non-human primates and man.(Series B) |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The neural correlates of action understanding in nonhuman primates | 13 |
The mirror system in humans | 37 |
Further developments in the study of mirror neurons system | 61 |
The coevolution of language and working memory capacity | 77 |
Characterization of the time course | 87 |
The role of objects in imitation | 101 |
The mirror system and joint action | 115 |
On the evolutionary origin of language | 175 |
Mirror neurons vocal imitation and the evolution of particulate speech | 207 |
Mirror neurons | 229 |
Some features that make mirror neurons and human language | 249 |
Egos | 273 |
Visual attention and selfgrooming behaviors among | 295 |
The role of mirror neurons in the ontogeny of speech | 305 |
A resource | 315 |
Brain activation to passive observation of grasping actions | 125 |
Mirror neurons and the self construct | 135 |
Behavioral synchronization in human conversational interaction | 151 |
Symmetry building and symmetry breaking in synchronized movement | 163 |
Looking for neural answers to linguistic questions | 323 |
A connectionist model which unifies the behavioral | 363 |
Name index | 377 |
Other editions - View all
Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language Maxim I. Stamenov,Vittorio Gallese Limited preview - 2002 |
Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language Maksim Stamenov,Vittorio Gallese No preview available - 2002 |
Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language Maksim Stamenov,Vittorio Gallese No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
ability action activation adult agent behavior body brain Cambridge capacity cognitive communicative complex condition conversation coordination cortex cortical cultural dialogic direction early effect emergence error et al evidence evolution evolutionary example execution Experimental experiments Fadiga Figure frontal function Gallese gestures goal grasping hand hominid human imitation important increase individual infants interaction involved language learning linguistic matching means mechanism memory mental mind mirror neurons mirror system monkey motor mouth movements natural neural object observed occurs organization origin parietal participants patterns perception performance possible premotor present Press primates production question reference representation represented Research response Rizzolatti role Science sequence signal similar social specific speech structure subjects suggest symbolic symmetry task theory tion understanding units University visual vocal