Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others

Categories: Science , Staff Picks , Nonfiction

I picked up Mirroring People:  The New Science of How We Connect with Others thinking it was going to be about the phenomenon that TV documentaries sometimes cover, that people who interest each other subconsciously mimic each other’s gestures and even synchronize their breathing and heartbeats.

Well, neuroscientist Marco Ioacoboni’s fascinating book touches on that topic, but it turns out to be about much more. 

He describes the discovery, led by a team of Italian scientists, of “mirror neurons,” motor nerves that appear to play a basic role in the ability of people (and other animals) to recognize each other’s intentions, anticipate each other’s actions, feel empathy for the emotions of someone other than themselves, develop language, and participate in the whole complex process of social cognition.

Pretty cool, huh?

Iacoboni begins by describing experiments that show that certain motor neurons in a particular part of the brain “fire” when a monkey grasps a piece of fruit.  What’s fascinating is that those same neurons fire when the monkey sees someone else grasp the piece of fruit, even though the monkey doesn’t move.  Why would the nerves controlling muscle movement activate when no muscles move?

Here’s an even more fascinating experiment:  people are shown videos of a hand picking up a teacup.  In one version, the video shows just hand and teacup; in another, a neatly laid table with food on it; in the third, a table strewn with used napkins and crumbs.  All three videos show the exact same motion, and the corresponding motor neurons fire in the viewers’ brains.  But the intensity of the reaction differs according to the context of the action, with the strongest reaction to the hand that is picking up the cup with the apparent intention to drink from it rather than simply grasp it or clear it from a dirty table.  Why?  What do these neurons have to do with the perception not just of action but of intention?

It’s not just a visual response, either.  The response to hearing a piece of paper ripped involves the same neurons as ripping it or watching someone else rip it. 

Since language also codes aurally this same complex problem of perception, action, and intention, are mirror neurons involved in the development of language?  There’s evidence that suggests that they are. 

Experiment demonstrates that mirror neurons play a part in empathy and other social behavior, too.  How do I, locked into my own brain with no direct access to yours, “know” that you’re picking up the fruit to eat it and not to throw it at me?  Why does the audience at a movie feel moved by watching the sad or exciting scenes—or any of them, for that matter? 

And is dysfunction of those neurons somehow associated with autism and other socially crippling syndromes? 

The questions and the hints of answers get broader and broader as experimentation with mirror neurons continues.  The new fields of neuroscience are beginning to give us our first real understanding of brain and mind, and mirror neurons seem like a key piece of the puzzle.

Very cool.