Mirror Neurones Flashcards
What is the mirror neurone system?
-consists of special brain cells distributed in several areas of the brain
-fire in response to personal action + in response to action on the part of others
What did Rizzolatti study?
-electrical activity in a monkeys motor cortex
-activated in both the same way as watching others vs them self eating
-same brain cells were fired
Who did research into intentions + neurones?
-Gallese + Goldman
What did Gallese + Goldman suggest?
-mirror neurones responded not just to observed actions but to intentions behind behaviour
-stimulate others actions in motor neurone system + experience their intentions using our mirror system
-we need it to interact socially
What is the link between perspective taking and mirror neurones?
-important in other social cognitive functions
-if neurones fire in response to others intentions it may give us a neural mechanism for understanding others emotional states
How is evolution linked to mirror neurones?
-Ramachandran
-neurones make a system in understanding intentions
-without them we would have no complex social roles or cope in large groups
Why are mirror neurones important in autism?
-major source of evidence
-explanation to children who are shown to have a dysfunctional neurone system
What is the broken mirror theory of autism?
-neurological deficits prevent a child imitating + understanding social behaviour of others
-Ramachandran + Oberman
How can a broken system lead to challenges in social communication?
-manifests itself in infancy when a child is later diagnosed typically mimic adult behaviour less than others
-leads to challenges as children don’t develop the usual abilities to read intentions
What is support for the mirror neurone system?
-Hacker demonstrated by fMRI scans that brodmans areas is involved in human empathy
-levels of activity in B area increased when other yawned
-B areas = rich in MN
-Lacoboni showed that activity in inferior frontal gyrus increased when P’s tried to understand intentions behind hand grasping
-MN play a role in important aspects of social cognition
What is a contradiction to mirror neurones?
-measuring neurone activity
-animal studies - implanting electrodes to study electrical activity in individual neurones
-ethically impossible to use this in humans
-animals tell us little about human cognition
-alternative = scanning = only measures activity in brain areas not individual
What is a practical application on mirror neurones?
-MN abnormalities can explain why autistic people have difficulty copying actions
-Dapretto - used brain scans to observe parts of the brain used by autistic + non autistic children
What is an issue + debate to mirror neurones?
-females have greater social sensitivity than males
-if MN underlie social sensitivity - we would expect to find gender differences
-Cheung - recorded EEG activity while men + women watched either a moving dot or hand actions
-hand actions arouse the MNs
-females showed a stronger response than males to hand action
