Abstract

This chapter is composed of two parts. In the first we review the functional properties of an intriguing class of premotor neurons that we discovered in the monkey premotor cortex: the "mirror neurons." These neurons discharge both when the monkey performs an action and when it observes another individual making a similar action. The second part is basically speculative. It is based on the hypothesis that there is a very general, evolutionary ancient mechanism, that we will name "resonance" mechanism, through which pictorial descriptions of motor behaviors are matched directly on the observer's motor "representations" of the same behaviors. We will posit that resonance mechanism is a fundamental mechanism at the basis of inter-individual relations including some behaviors commonly described under the heading of "imitation."

Keywords

Mirror neuronImitationMechanism (biology)Premotor cortexNeuroscienceAction (physics)PsychologyFunctional magnetic resonance imagingCognitive scienceCommunicationBiologyPhilosophyPhysicsAnatomyEpistemology

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Publication Info

Year
2002
Type
book-chapter
Pages
247-266
Citations
274
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi et al. (2002). From mirror neurons to imitation: Facts and speculations. Cambridge University Press eBooks , 247-266. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511489969.015

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DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511489969.015