Mirror Neurons:

From Origins to Function

ESCON 2013 Pre-conference on Social Neuroscience

Organised by Frank Van Overwalle. Funded by the ESF

Vilnius, Lithuania, 28th August 2013

All Souls College

& Department of Experimental Psychology

University of Oxford

Cecilia Heyes

Mirror Neurons

Iacoboni & Dapretto 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 942-951

Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi & Rizzolatti 1996, Brain, 119, 593-609

Sensational Reviews

January 10, 2006

“Cells that read minds”

“The Mirror Neuron Revolution:

Explaining What Makes Humans Social”

1 July 2008

“The driving force behind the ‘great leap forward’ in human

evolution…

I predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did

for biology.”

Ramachandran, June 29, 2000

Where do mirror neurons come from?

Genetic

Purpose

Process

Driver

Type of experience

Role of experience

‘Action understanding’

Natural selection

Genome

Sensory &/or motor

Facilitative

Associative

None

Associative learning

Environment

Sensorimotor

Inductive

Heyes (2010) Neuro & Biobeh Revs, 34, 575-583

Cook, Bird, Catmur, Press & Heyes (in press), Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Mirror Neurons from Associative Learning

STS

PMC

S1 S2 Sn

M1 M2 Mn

Before learning

M1 M2 Mn

S1 S2 Sn

After learning

Mirror1 Mirror2 Mirrorn

Learning

Heyes (2010) Neuro & Biobeh Revs, 34, 575-583

Cook, Bird, Catmur, Press & Heyes (in press) Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Sociocultural experience

Rich sources: Self-observation

White et al (1964)

2-3 month infants

majority of waking hours looking at own hands

Being imitated

Pawlby (1977)

4-10 months, face-to-face with mother

Imitation every minute – 79% M>I

Characteristics of mirror neurons

Action types

‘Goals’

View-specific, direction-specific

Transitive & intransitive

Tools and sounds

Context effects

Occlusion

Eating vs placing

Development

Imitation in newborns

Effects of sensorimotor training

Genetic

Associative

Imitation in Newborns

0

5

10

15

20

25

Tongue

protrusion

Mouth

opening

Hand

opening

Lip

protrusion

Finger

movement

Blinking Head move Facial

emotion

Positive

Negative

Num

be

r o

f p

ub

lishe

d e

xp

erim

ents

Gesture Type

Ray & Heyes (2011) Developmental Science

Jones (2006) Infant Behavior

& Development

Meltzoff & Moore (1977)

Science

Drop-out

Cook, Johnson & Heyes (2013) Psychological Science, 24, 93-98

Richard Cook

Effects of Sensorimotor Experience Effects Enhance

Abolish

Reverse

Induce

Measures

Automatic imitation

Heyes et al 2005

Press et al 2007

Gillmeister et al 2008

Cook et al 2010, 2012

Wiggett et al 2011

MEPs

d’Ausilio et al 2006

Catmur et al 2007, 2011

Petroni et al 2010

fMRI action observation

Haslinger et al 2005

Calvo-Merino et al 2006

Cross et al 2009

fMRI conjunction

Catmur et al 2008

Landmann et al 2011

fMRI repetition suppression

Press et al under review

Reversal: Counter-mirror neurons

S1 S2 Sn

M1 M2 Mn

See index See little

Do index Do little

Index

Little

MEP

Caroline Catmur

Catmur, Walsh & Heyes (2007) Current Biology, 17

Catmur, Mars, Rushworth & Heyes (2010) J Cogn Neuro

Cavallo, Heyes, Becchio, Bird & Catmur (in press), SCAN

‘Fadiga effect’

TRAINING

Index > Index

Little > Little

Control

Index > Little

Little > Index

Experimental

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

Index Little

Post test

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

Index Little

Observed movement

Control

Group

Experimental

Group

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

Index Little

Pre test

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

Index Little

Observed movement

ME

P r

atio

(m

ove

me

nt / re

ce

din

g)

From origins to function

Developmental history

System-level psychological theory

Intervention experiments

Cook, Bird, Catmur, Press & Heyes (in press), Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Putting the ‘cognitive’ back into

‘social cognitive neuroscience’

Some methods from neuroscience

Discovery from neuroscience

Theory and other methods from psychology