Being able to comprehend communicative intentions and to recognize whether such intentions are directed toward us or not is extremely important in social interaction. Two brain systems, the mentalizing and the mirror neuron system, have been proposed to underlie intention recognition. However, little is still known about how the systems cooperate within the process of communicative intention un...

Communication is an important aspect of human life, allowing us to powerfully coordinate our behaviour with that of others. Boiled down to its mere essentials, communication entails transferring a mental content from one brain to another. Spoken language obviously plays an important role in communication between human individuals. Manual gestures however often aid the semantic interpretation of...

Idioms are used in conventional language twice as frequently as metaphors, but most research, particularly recent work on embodiment has focused on the latter. However, idioms have the potential to significantly deepen our understanding of embodiment because their meanings cannot be derived from their component words. To determine whether sensorimotor states could activate idiomatic meaning, pa...

Computational models of neural networks (structured by brain regions) homology monkey human Descending influences of evolved extensions on basic homologues

We investigated the effect of perspective on the recognition of actions, without using motor preparation. Photographs of a hand wearing a glove were presented as primes, followed by photographs of the same hand interacting with an object. Both primes and targets were shown in egocentric or non-egocentric perspective. Participants had to decide whether or not the hand interacted with the object ...

New single-cell recordings show that humans do have mirror neurons, and in more brain regions than previously suspected. Some action-execution neurons were seen to be inhibited during observation, possibly preventing imitation and helping self/other discrimination.

Ward and Banissy provide an excellent overview of the state of mirror-touch research in order to advance this field. They present a comparison of two prominent theoretical approaches for understanding mirror-touch phenomena. According to the threshold theory, the phenomena arise as a result of a hyperactive mirror neuron system. According to the Self-Other Theory, they are due to disturbances i...

Human children copy others' actions with high fidelity, supporting early cultural learning and assisting in the development and maintenance of behavioral traditions [1]. Imitation has long been assumed to occur from birth [2-4], with influential theories (e.g., [5-7]) placing an innate imitation module at the foundation of social cognition (potentially underpinned by a mirror neuron system [8, ...

Synesthesia is traditionally regarded as a phenomenon in which an additional non-standard phenomenal experience occurs consistently in response to ordinary stimulation applied to the same or another modality. Recent studies suggest an important role of semantic representations in the induction of synesthesia. In the present proposal we try to link the empirically grounded theory of sensory-moto...

The mirror neuron system may help us understand how others act and what they do. A recent study has shown that consciously reflecting on their intentions additionally recruits mentalizing areas.