Mirroring, association, and the correspondence problem

Mirror phenomena are behavioral and neurophysiological reactions to social stimuli in which the stimulus and the response match or correspond; they share distinctive features. For example, observation of face-touching and foot-wagging elicit similar, overt behaviors from the observer (Chartrand and Bargh, 1999); observation of arm and hand movements selectively enhance motor-evoked potentials from the muscles involved in performing the same hand and arm movements (Strafella and Paus, 2000); facial expressions of disgust activate the insular cortex, which is also active during presentation of a disgusting smell (Wicker et al., 2003); and the sight of a needle pricking a model’s hand activates areas of the anterior cingulated cortex and anterior insula involved in pain processing (Morrison et al., 2004; Avenanti et al., 2005). In this chapter we consider the extent to which mirror phenomena can be explained in terms of very simple associative processes. We will focus on motoric mirror phenomena, those in which action observation provokes the execution of similar overt or covert motor responses. The first section locates associative accounts of these phenomena among other ‘mirror theories’, and the second outlines one particular associative hypothesis, the associative sequence learning (ASL) model. The third section reviews evidence that the ASL model is applicable, not only to ‘automatic’ imitative responses, but also to cases of imitation learning and instructed imitation. In the final section we discuss extension of the ASL model to non-motoric mirror phenomena, and effects that may appear to be beyond its explanatory reach.