Session 6: Social Cognition - Mirror Neurons PDF

Session 6: Social Cognition - Mirror neurons Learning outcomes for lesson 2 Analyse and evaluate the role of mirror neurons Recap from the last week … What were the three questions asked during the Sally-Anne test and what were the results of this study? Does this study lack ecological validi...

Session 6: Social Cognition - Mirror neurons Learning outcomes for lesson 2 Analyse and evaluate the role of mirror neurons Recap from the last week … What were the three questions asked during the Sally-Anne test and what were the results of this study? Does this study lack ecological validity? What other limitations are there? In pairs discuss these questions and write down your answers. We will check them together as a group.  What are mirror neurons? Mirror neurons are nerves in the brain that are active when specific actions are performed or observed in others, therefore allowing observers to experience the action as if it were their own. Mirror neurons may permit individuals to share in the feelings and thoughts of others by empathising with and imitating others, and thus allow them to have a ToM. They encode the activity of another individual as if types of neuron the observer were acting out the same activity. This means that one person’s neural activity can imitate another person’s just be watching or imagining an event. They were discovered by accident! Mirror neurons were discovered by Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti in the 1990s. He and his colleagues from the University of Parma in Italy noticed that when they reached for food certain neurons in the (F5 area) premotor cortex would activate and this was also observed for macaque monkeys when they made the same hand movements. However, they also noticed that even when the monkeys did not move their hands, but merely watched the researchers doing it, they still had the same activity in their own premotor cortex. This happened when they were observing other macaque monkeys reaching for food. It appears that Do we really mirror the feelings and actions of others? In groups consider the following questions? What examples of mirrored behaviour and/or feelings can we think of? Why might the ability to do this be important? How is this linked to social cognition? Deep dive.. consider the following How is this adaptive behaviour and what do we mean by terms; idiographic, nomothetic, adaptive? and reductionist. How might we start to use these in relation to mirror neurons? Mirror neurons enable us to learn contagious laughter on the underground through imitation The action of mirror neurons is such that when individuals experience an emotion such as disgust, or view an expression of disgust on another person’s face, the same mirror neurons are activated. This allows an observer and the person being observed to have direct experiential understanding of each other, thus explaining how people empathise with each other (understand each other’s feelings). Before mirror neurons were discovered, psychologists believed individuals used logical thought processes to interpret and predict the behaviour of others, but mirror neurons indicate the possibility that humans understand other people not by thinking but by feeling. In other words, mirror neurons may allow individuals to simulate other people’s behaviour and the motivation and feelings behind their behaviour. Over to you … Mirror Neurons Read this article by Tanu Patel and answer the following questions: Who first discovered mirror neurons and which animal was used in the research? Why has it been difficult to show exactly the same results in humans? Are mirror neurons confined to the motor cortex? If not, where else might they be and what are the implications of this? What evidence is there for the role of mirror neurons in the development of empathy? Mirror neurons help us to understand the intentions of others. Iacoboni et al (2005) MNs represent not just what a person is doing but also what they intend to do Iacoboni found the highest level of MN activity in the inferior frontal cortex during the intention clip This infers that this area of the brain is concerned with understanding why a person is behaving in a certain way (otherwise there would be a similar level of activity during the other clips). Iacoboni - How could you evaluate this? Fogassi et al (2005) - what does this study support and what ethical issues might there be? Put your answers (and initials!) onto Padlet Perspective taking and ToM. Mirror neurons could be the answer to how we develop empathy Gallese & Goldman (1998) posit that mirror neurons may form a cortical system matching football injury observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Their work supports the theory that mirror neurons enable us to experience someone else’s actions as if they were our own. This means that they could be the mechanism by which we understand another person’s perspective. This would ultimately lead to empathy which is the ability to do more than just understand what someone else is thinking but to also experience how they are feeling. Supporting evidence How might we Stuss et al. (2001) reported that individuals with damage to complete these their frontal lobes were often unable to empathise with and pieces of evidence read other people’s intentions and were easy to deceive … to fully explain the significance of our Gallese (2001) used fMRI scanning to find that the anterior points? cingulate cortex and inferior frontal cortex are active when individuals experience emotion or observe another person experiencing the same emotion …  Language acquisition The beginning of learning to use language involves the imitation of speech sounds. Remember, Meltzoff and Moore demonstrated the importance of early imitation. Can you remember what their research was and what could be concluded? This imitation of sounds is likely to involve the use Deep dive … of mirror neurons. In support of this, Binkofski, et al (2000) found evidence of mirror neurons in Consider the case of Genie Wiley who you Broca’s area (speech production). This is equivalent of the F5 area where mirror neurons would have studied last year. She never were found in macaque monkeys. recovered the use of language. How can we use this to support the role of mirror neurons in language development? Basis of human uniqueness Ramachandran has proposed that MNs are especially developed in humans. This explains the uniqueness of humans as a species. Ramachandran believes that mirror neurons have enabled us to excel in social relationships and that this forms an evolutionary basis for human social success. In consideration of this, where would the existence of mirror neurons and language development sit on the nature-nurture debate? Would Piaget or Vygotsky agree with this? How could we link this to issues and debates? Evaluating mirror neurons Take each of these points and develop them into full ‘There is a methodological issue to studying them in humans …’ evaluation paragraphs. You will have to draw on your ‘Social cognition seems to exist only in animals who psychological and biological live in social groups. Mirror neurons have been found in a number of these social species (including knowledge and specialist dogs)...’ terminology here. We will discuss as a class group ‘Mirror neurons may have evolved as a by-product of afterwards! our social interactions rather than as an adaptive mechanism …’ Learning check … For this activity, just bullet-point the content you would include for A01. Remember, it has to be enough information for 6 marks so this should only take you 6 minutes! Learning outcomes for lesson 3 Describe and evaluate research by Dapretto et al (2006) Evaluate the role of mirror neurons as an explanation for autism. Contemporary research Using the link to my online textbook, find the 2006 research by Dapretto et al. (page 31). Outline the aims, procedure, results and conclusions of this study. You will all need to complete the sheet via the link on classroom. No sharing work today! Are mirror neurons an explanation for autism? There is research support for motor neurons explaining autism. Williams et al. (2001) argued that motor neuron abnormalities may underlie the fact that people with autism generally have difficulty copying actions and various studies have supported this. For example, Dapretto et al. (2006) used brain-scanning techniques to observe parts of the brain used by autistic and non-autistic children when observing faces that displayed anger, fear, happiness, sadness or no emotion. The only difference identified was that the participants with autism showed reduced activity in a portion of the inferior frontal gyrus. This is a section of the brain that has been identified as part of the motor neuron system. Slack (2007) argues this presents real-world applications as it might therefore be possible to help autistic individuals through strengthening the motor neurons using activities that require the imitation of others. Learning check … Using mirror neuron theory as an explanation for autism could be argued to be deterministic. Write a paragraph which explains what is meant by determinism and explain why mirror neuron theory may be a deterministic explanation. Learning check …