social cognition - the mirror neuron system

Question 1

the discovery of mirror neurons

Answer 1

• Rizzolatti was studying electrical activity in a monkey’s motor cortex when one researcher reached for his lunch in view of the monkey, and the monkey’s motor cortex became activated in exactly the same way as when the monkey itself reached for food
• further investigation revealed that it was the same brain cells that fired when the monkey reached itself or watched someone else reach
• researchers called these cells mirror neurons because they mirror motor activity in another individual
• if you watched someone else being touched, mirror neurons in the somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe would fire

Question 2

mirror neurons and intention

Answer 2

• identifying mirror neurons has given us a new way of thinking about the way we understand other’s intentions
• Gallese and Goldman suggested that mirror neurons respond to not just observed actions but also to intentions behind behaviour
• Gallese and Goldman suggested that we simulate others’ actions in our motor system and experience their intentions using our mirror neurons

Question 3

mirror neurons and perspective taking

Answer 3

• also suggested that mirror neurons are important in other social-cognitive functions such as ToM and perspective taking
• if mirror neurons fire in response to others’ actions and intentions, this may give us a neural mechanism for experiencing and understanding others’ perspectives and emotional states
• just as we can simulate intention by making judgements based on our own reflected motor responses, this information may also allow us to interpret what others are thinking and feeling

Question 4

mirror neurons and human evolution

Answer 4

• Ramachandran suggested that mirror neurons have effectively shaped human evolution
• uniquely complex social interactions we have require a brain system that facilitates an understanding of intention, emotion and perspective
• without these abilities we could not live in the large groups with the complex social roles and rules that characterise human culture
• Ramachandran suggests that mirror neurons are key to understanding the way humans have developed as a social species

Question 5

mirror neurons and autism

Answer 5

• major source of evidence concerning mirror neurons and perspective taking comes from study of mirror neurons in autistic children
• some features of autism are associated with all the social-cognitive abilities linked to mirror neurons
• if autistic children can be shown to have a dysfunctional mirror neuron system (reduced neuronal activity, less firing) this may go a long way to explaining autism
• Ramachandran and Oberman proposed the ‘broken mirror’ theory of autism
• the idea that neurological deficits that include dysfunction in the mirror neuron system prevent a child imitating and understanding social behaviour in others
• this manifests itself in infancy when children later diagnosed with autism typically mimic adult behaviour less than others
• later, problems with the mirror neuron system lead to challenges in social communication as children do not fully develop the usual abilities to read intention and emotion in others

Question 6

evaluation strength - research support

Answer 6

• evidence from neuroscience to support a role for mirror neurons in a range of human behaviours
• Haker scanned the brains of people as they watched a film of people yawning
• levels of activity in Brodmann’s Area 9, believed to be rich in mirror neurons, increased when participants yawned in response
• contagious yawning is widely believed to be the result of empathy, so this links micro neuron activity to empathy
• Iacoboni showed that activity in the inferior frontal gyrus increased when participants tried to understand intentions behind a hand-grasping gesture
• mirror neurons encoded why an object was being grasped
• mirror neurons may play a role in important aspects of social cognition, including empathy and understanding intentions

Question 7

evaluation limitation - hard to research

Answer 7

• animal studies of mirror neurons often involve implanting electrodes in the brain, however it is ethically impossible to use this procedure in humans, and such animal studies tell us little about human cognition
• alternative is to use scanning techniques, however these only measure activity in brain areas and not individual cells
• there is no ‘gold standard’ for measuring mirror neuron activity in humans, and no direct evidence

Question 8

evaluation strength - explaining autism

Answer 8

• some evidence to support a link between autism and dysfunctions in the mirror neuron system
• brain scans have shown a smaller average thickness of the pars operculans in autistic people compared with neurotypical people
• this is an area thought to be rich in mirror neurons and thought to be involved in perspective-taking
• other studies using scanning methods that show activity have found lower activity levels in regions of the brain believed to be associated with high concentrations of mirror neurons, again in autistic people compared with neurotypicals
• suggests that a cause of autism may be related to the mirror neuron system