Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and LanguageMaksim Stamenov, Vittorio Gallese The 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 mirror system in humans | 37 |
Further developments in the study of mirror neurons system | 61 |
The coevolution of language and working memory capacity | 77 |
The role of objects in imitation | 101 |
The mirror system and joint action | 115 |
Mirror neurons and the self construct | 135 |
Behavioral synchronization in human conversational interaction | 151 |
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 |
Looking for neural answers to linguistic questions | 323 |
A connectionist model which unifies the behavioral | 363 |
Symmetry building and symmetry breaking in synchronized movement | 163 |
On the evolutionary origin of language | 175 |
Mirror neurons vocal imitation and the evolution of particulate speech | 207 |
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
action observation action understanding activation adult agent altercentric anatomical Arbib area F5 articulatory body BrĂ¥ten Broca's area Cambridge capacity cognitive communicative behavior complex condition coordination cortical cultural effect encoding error evolution evolutionary example execution experiments facial Fadiga Figure fMRI Fogassi frontal function Gallese gaze gestures goal grasping hominid Homo Homo erectus human brain imitation individual infants inferior parietal lobule input Intersubjective intraparietal sulcus language learning linguistic lobe macaque matching means mechanism Meltzoff memory mental mirror neurons mirror system module monkey mouth movements neocortex neural Neuroscience non-human primates object observed action parietal lobe parietal lobule patterns perception performance prefrontal cortex premotor cortex primates representation response Rizzolatti robot role sequence signal simulation social spatial specific speech structure sulcus superior parietal lobule symbolic symmetry target task temporal theory of mind tion University Press verbal virtual participation visual vocal Weigand words