Theory of Mind

Development of Social Cognition

Introduction

This refers to the concept of the child developing a sense of who it is and how it fits into society.  As the child matures it develops an increasing idea of its self identity.  This topic looks at how this comes about and the factors that shape it.  Although there are many factors involved, this part of the syllabus, ‘cognitive and developmental’ does tend to focus on the cognitive factors involved rather than, for example, the emotional. 

Three approaches will be considered:

Theory of mind (Baron-Cohen)

Perspective Taking (Selman)

Mirror-neuron theory (medical explanation)

Definition of ‘Self’

Self in this context refers to a person’s self awareness.

Murphy (1947) puts it simply: ‘The Self is the individual as known to the individual.’

Learey (2004) couches it in more complex terms: ‘a cognitive structure that allows self-reflection and organises information about ourselves.’  In other words it’s a schema or mental representation of who we are and what we know about ourselves.  Learey also believes that the self has inbuilt motivational features:

• Self-consistency: helps us maintain a steady view of whom we are that remains constant over time.
• Self-evaluation: a form of self-perception that ensures our perception  of ourselves is accurate.  This partly determines our level of self-esteem, the extent to which we like ourselves. 
• Self-enhancement: maintains a positive view of ourselves.

Greenwald (1980) offers a particularly good analogy of self-esteem, likening it to a totalitarian regime that acts to portray only a positive image of itself and is willing to ‘rewrite history’ in order to maintain this favourable view. 

Self image involves a number of characteristics:

• Social roles: teacher, uncle, member of CAMRA…
• Personality characteristics: introvert, selfish, vain…
• Physical characteristics: short, bald, kinda’ cute…

Self-ideal is the sort of person we would like to be. 

Self-esteem could also be seen as the difference between what we are and what we want to be.  Put mathematically:

              Self esteem = Self ideal – Self image

Testing self awareness (the rouge test)

Gallup (1970) was the first to use the following test, which has since been used to test other species.   A smudge of red (rouge) placed on the child’s nose who is then placed in front of a mirror.  If the child touches their own nose, rather than the rouge reflected in the mirror, it is assumed that they possess self-awareness.

Chimps and Happy the elephant

When chimps are given the rouge test fewer than 50% of those tested pass successfully.  However, in 2006 Plotnik tested a small group of elephants from the Yerkes colony.  Although most showed signs of recognition, only one, Happy’ went all the way and touched the white cross painted on her head.  It is thought elephants, with their complex social groupings would find self awareness a useful characteristic.

Development of the Self-concept

1. Subjective self awareness

We are born with some basic awareness such as warmth and hunger and soon become aware that we are responsible for our own movement (personal agency).  By about five months the child can also recognize its own face.  Legerstee et al (1998) found that children of this age look longer at photographs of others than of themselves. 

2.  Objective self awareness

This is usually tested using the rouge test and is seen as major distinguishing ability of humans (although a very few other species have been shown to have the ability).  Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) found that only 19% of infants aged 15 months could successfully complete the task.  This rose to 66% by two years. 

Development of objective self awareness is seen as crucial in the development of emotions, particularly self conscious traits such as jealousy and embarrassment. 

Some research also suggests that objective self awareness develops sooner in securely attached infants and in children who are encouraged to be independent. 

3.  Psychological self

Children up to the age of four tend to describe themselves in terms of physical characteristics such as their height and hair colour and in terms of things they can do like play football or swim.  As they get older they start to consider more psychological characteristics and when prompted will say whether they prefer to be on their own or with others and whether they are shy or more outgoing.  By the age of four there are the first signs of self-esteem (their own assessment of themselves). 

4.  Theory of mind (distinguishing self from others)

The following pages look at this in more detail. 

ToM is usually tested using a false belief task such as the Sally Anne saga or Wimmer and Perner’s blue/green cupboard. 

Theory of Mind

The term ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) is relatively new being coined by Premack and Woodruff in (1978) whilst studying the language and social abilities of chimpanzees. 

Definition:

‘The ability to attribute mental states [such as beliefs and feelings] to oneself and to others.

For example: ‘Val seems pensive today’ and ‘Nick would like this for his birthday.’ 

Basically a child has ToM when it can appreciate that others have different ideas, thoughts, desires, likes and dislikes to themselves.  Consider this in terms of Piaget and loss of egocentricism.

Wimmer and Perner (1983): blue cupboard/green cupboard

Children of 4, 6 or 8 years of age watch a toy (called Maxi) place some chocolates in a blue cupboard.  Maxi leaves the room during which time his mum moves the chocolates to a green cupboard.  The children see Maxi return and are asked ‘where will Maxi look for the chocolates?’

Most 4 year olds incorrectly expect Maxi to look in the green cupboard

Most 6 and 8 year olds correctly believe he will look in the blue cupboard.

Conclusion

Children as young as 4 assume that Maxi will know what they know.  By the time the children are 6 years of age they realize that others don’t.

Wellman et al (2001) got similar results in a meta-analysis of previous research.  There also appears to be cross-cultural support for the findings from the results of similar studies carried out in seven different countries.  Development of this ability was slower in Japan and Austria.

Baron-Cohen et al (1985); the Sally Anne saga

Baron-Cohen is by far the biggest contributor to our knowledge of ToM.  However, most of the information he has collected has been from his work on children with autism. 

Examination advice from AQA(A) Psychology:  The board specifies Theory of Mind (Baron-Cohen) which means that they can ask a question specifically about his theory.  Faced with this question you will almost certainly need to discuss autism since B-C’s work has focused largely on children and adults with this disorder.  The assumption being that people with autism lack a theory of mind. 

Children watch as two dolls (Sally and Anne) act out a scenario similar to the Wimmer and Perner cupboard experiment. 

Sally places a marble in her basket and leaves the room and her basket behind.  Anne removes the marble and places it in her box.  Sally returns.

The children are then asked three questions:

1. Where is the marble really? (the naming question)
2. Where was the marble in the beginning? (the memory question)
3. Where will Sally look for the marble? (the belief question)

However, in this study Baron-Cohen et al’s participants comprise:

20 autistic children (average age 12)

14 children with Down’s syndrome (average age 11)

27 children with neither autism nor Downs (average age 4.5)

Results

All the participant pass the naming question and the memory question.

However, for the belief question (testing ToM) the success rates were as follows:

Disorder	% correct answers
‘Normal’ (neither disorder)	85%
Down’s syndrome	86%
Autism	20%

 

Conclusion

Children with autism seem unable to appreciate that others have different thoughts or beliefs to themselves. 

This inability seems to be a very specific one since children with Down’s syndrome who have far greater global deficiencies can complete the task normally.

It is thought that the 20% of autistic children who can perform this task do so by employing a very long-winded method rather than intuitively knowing the answer. 

First and second order beliefs

A first order belief is a belief the child attributes to another person.  For example in the Sally Anne procedure, ‘Sally will look for the marble in her basket.’

A second order belief is the realization that another person can have a belief about a third person.  For example ‘I think that Anne thinks Sally will look in her basket.’

When Baron-Cohen (1989) tested the performance of autistic children on second order beliefs he found that none of them could perform the task successfully compared to 90% of a younger group of children without autism. 

Shared attention mechanism

Baron-Cohen (1995) believes an important reason for this deficit in autistic children is due to their lack of a shared attention mechanism.

Shared attention is the ability that we have to work out what others are thinking by looking at what they’re looking at (or what they’re attending to).

For example imagine you’re watching someone who’s trying to choose between four bars of chocolate: a twix, a snickers, a milky way and a topic.  If they’re clearly staring at the topic (my favourite) then you can work out that’s what they want.  Autistic children find this difficult.

Baron-Cohen et al (1996) gave five tests like this to 16,000 eighteen month old children.  Only twelve out of this huge sample failed every test.  By the age of 3½ nearly all of these had been diagnosed with autism.  (Unable to find how many constitutes ‘nearly all’).

 

General or Specific deficits

As mentioned above Baron-Cohen assumes that the problems in autistic children are due to specific cognitive impairments (what he refers to as ‘mindblindness’).

However there is a large body of evidence that suggests autistic children have more general deficits, for example inability to plan and focus and other so-called executive functions (think of role of central executive).

Hughes and Russell (1993) showed children a box containing a marble which they had to remove.  Although they could reach in and get it they were told that they had to turn a knob or push a switch.  Autistic children found it almost impossible not to simply reach in and grab the marble.  As the researchers saw it, they were unable to inhibit this response. 

Central coherence

Imagine I’ve just pulled you up for your lack of sartorial elegance (i.e. made a silly and probably unkind comment about the way you’re dressed).  However, I have done so with a big grin on my face.  Knowing me as you do then hopefully you wouldn’t be too offended and see it as a joke.  You have central coherence.  You can consider all the information available… rude comment but smiley face and conclude that it was a light-hearted quip.  Autistic children appear to lack central coherence and as a result only consider part of the message.  If this is the verbal element then chances are they will be insulted!

Evaluation of ToM

There is plenty of support for Baron-Cohen’s theory and there is no doubting that autistic children do have problems understanding ‘their own and other’s mind.’

However, the false belief tests are complicated.  It is difficult to ascertain whether the problems faced by the autistic are specific (mindblindness) or are down to more general cognitive deficits, such as attention. 

Baron-Cohen does not consider the child’s motivation to understand other people’s thoughts and behaviour.  Perhaps autistic children perform less well, not because of a specific inability but because they are less well motivated than others.

ToM theory does not account for the other symptoms of autism, most notably savant characteristics.  How does an inability to read minds explain the language problems and obsessive behaviours of some autistic children and how can it explain the unusual skills possessed by a minority of children with autism?

NB (nota bene… meaning ‘note well’ in Latin)

In 1995 Baron-Cohen proposed the existence of ToMM (theory of mind module).  He sees this as a structure or mechanism within the brain which develops at the age of about four years and allows us to understand the thoughts of others.  Clearly this ties in with the mirror neuron system discussed later in the topic.

Individual differences and nurture

Biological structure cannot fully explain ToM however.  Children from larger families seem to develop ToM earlier than other children, probably because they’re exposed to a wider range of different minds at an early age.  This would suggest an environmental influence on the development, so we have an argument for the nurture side of the debate too.

Development of the child’s understanding of others

Perspective-taking theory (Selman)

Put simply this is the idea that if we can understand another person’s view we will be better able to understand people and to empathise with them.  We will be more socially competent. 

Baron-Cohen (1985) distinguished between:

1. Perceptual perspective taking (as tested by Piaget’s three mountains) whereby we can understand that other people see the world differently and
2. Conceptual perspective taking (as tested by Baron-Cohen’s false belief task) whereby we can go further and attribute thoughts and feelings to other people. 

Flavell et al (1990) made a similar distinction but referred to this as:

Level 1 (2 and 3 year old): who know that others see things differently and

Level 2 (4 and 5 year olds): who can work out what others are seeing and feeling. 

Flavell (1986) painted a sponge to look like a rock.  Children were then asked: ‘What does it look like?’ and ‘what is it really? Three year olds tended to answer the same for both questions, either rock or sponge. By the age of five however, they can say it looks like a rock but it’s really a sponge.

 

In a follow up by Gopnik and Astington (1988) they allowed children to feel the sponge first and then they’re told that a friend hasn’t touched the sponge, what will they think it is? 

Younger children think others will know what they know… ‘he’ll think it’s a sponge’

Older children (5 onwards) can attribute false beliefs to other people: ‘he’ll thin it’s a rock.’

By the age of five children can take another person’s perspective. 

Selman’s stages of perspective taking

Selman’s methods are similar to those of Piaget (and his moral stories) and Kohlberg (with his dilemmas).  Typically Selman reads such a story and asks questions.  One such story is that of Holly:

Holly is an 8-year old girl who likes to climb trees. She is the best tree climber in the neighbourhood. One day while climbing a tree she falls off the bottom branch but does not hurt herself. Her father sees her fall, and is upset. He asks her to promise not to climb trees anymore, and Holly promises.

Later that day, Holly and her friends meet Sean. Sean's kitten is caught up in a tree and cannot get down. Something has to be done right away or the kitten may fall. Holly is the only one who climbs trees well enough to reach the kitten and get it down, but she remembers her promise to her father.

If children of different ages are presented with this situation and asked such questions as, "If Holly climbs the tree, should she be punished?" "Will her father understand if she climbs the tree?" "Will Sean understand why Holly has trouble deciding what to do?" the children will give answers relevant to their age group:

• Level 0: Egocentric viewpoint (or undifferentiated)           Age: 3-6
  Description: Children recognize that the self and others can have different thoughts and feelings, but they frequently confuse the two.
  Response: The child predicts that Holly will save the kitten because she does not want it to get hurt and believes that Holly's father will feel just as she does about her climbing the tree: "Happy, he likes kittens."
• Level 1: Social-informational perspective-taking                     Age: 6-8
  Description: Children understand that different perspectives may result because people have access to different information.
  Response: When asked how Holly's father will react when he finds out that she climbed the tree, the child responds, "If he didn't know anything about the kitten, he would be angry. But if Holly shows him the kitten, he might change his mind."
• Level 2: Self-reflective perspective-taking                    Age: 8-10
  Description: Children can "step in another person's shoes" and view their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviour from the other person's perspective. They also recognize that others can do the same.
  Response: When asked whether Holly thinks she will be punished, the child says, "No. Holly knows that her father will understand why she climbed the tree." This response assumes that Holly's point of view is influenced by her father being able to "step in her shoes" and understand why she saved the kitten.

• Level 3: Third-party perspective-taking                                Age: 10-12
  Description: Children can step outside a two-person situation and imagine how the self and other are viewed from the point of view of a third, impartial party.
  Response: When asked whether Holly should be punished, the child says, "No, because Holly thought it was important to save the kitten. But she also knows that her father told her not to climb the tree. So she'd only think she shouldn't be punished if she could get her father to understand why she had to climb the tree." This response steps outside the immediate situation to view both Holly's and her father's perspectives simultaneously.
• Level 4: Societal perspective-taking                                       Age: 12-15 onwards
  Description: Individuals understand that third-party perspective-taking can be influenced by one or more systems of larger societal values.
  Response: When asked if Holly should be punished, the individual responds, "No. The value of humane treatment of animals justifies Holly's action. Her father's appreciation of this value will lead him not to punish her."

Cognition and Perspective taking (chicken or egg?)

As with cognitive theories of morality (such as Kohlberg’), it would seem logical that increases in cognitive development would need to take place before perspective taking could improve. 

Keating & Clark (1980) compared perspective taking ability with level of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. 

Piagets’s level of cognitive development	Selman’s level of perspective taking
Sensori-motor and Preoperational	Level 0
Concrete operational thought	Levels 1 and 2
Formal operational thought	Levels 3 and 4

As you can see from the table above, this seems to be the case.  The better the thinking the better the perspective taking.  However, this is correlational so all we can say with certainty is that the two are associated.  We can’t say that increases in cognitive ability are causing the improvements in perspective taking.  Importantly, however, Walker (1980) does believe that the cognitive improvements do take place first suggesting there may be a causal relationship. 

 

Perspective taking can be slowed

There is plenty of research to suggest that children that are mistreated in the home do not develop perspective taking skills as quickly as other children.  Manly (2006) found that teenagers (average age 15) that had been mistreated at home had the average perspective taking ability of a ten year old.  This could be down to the fact that mistreated children have fewer social interactions with parents or because they are observing poor social behaviour in their parents. 

Evaluation

Validity

Do the predictions made by these tests stand up in real life situations?  (Hint: think of how we could measure the validity of an IQ test.  If the test measures a person’s IQ at 130 then we would expect that person to perform well in school tests, if it was valid). 

In the case of Selman’s test, we would expect a child that scores highly on perspective taking to communicate more effectively with others in real life situations. This appears to be the case.  Selman et al (1983) got girls to work in small groups and make puppets and then put on puppet shows.  Those who had earlier scored well on PT were observed to communicate better as part of the groups. 

Research does tend to support many of Selman’s ideas:

Perspective taking is important in social situations

Perspective taking does seem to proceed through the stages he suggests

The lack of social skills in maltreated children may be due to their inability to perspective take

Perspective taking does seem to be associated with improving cognitive development and with higher intelligence. 

 

However

Better developed perspective taking ability is not a guarantee of social success!  In real-life situations the child also needs to know how to use these skills and crucially which behaviours are suitable (or not) in different situations. 

Although you would expect children with better PT skills to be more popular with peers, this is not always the case.  Attempts to teach PT skills to children to improve their social competence are not always successful. 

The theory places too great an emphasis on perspective taking as a determinant of social interactions.  Many people have very good PT skills and high cognitive ability but for whatever reason are not good in social situations.  Motivation, not mentioned by Selman, is also needed.

The theory is reductionist.  It doesn’t consider individual differences between children, for example in their personality.  Children high in emotionality (those who experience intense, usually negative emotions) and low in ability to manage their emotions, tend to be less socially competent than others, (Eisenberg et al 1997). 

Biological control of social cognition including the Mirror-Neuron System

This section will look at biological explanations of social cognition.  However, at the outset it is important to bear in mind that different explanations of similar characteristics are not mutually exclusive.  Evidence for biological explanations do not mean other explanations are wrong; they are simply viewing the behaviour at a different level. 

From the point of view of the perspective; it does say ‘including the mirror-neuron system’ and in fact this appears to be the ONLY biological explanation worth mentioning! 

The Mirror-Neuron System

Understanding the behaviour and thoughts of others is a very useful characteristic of any social creature.  All the primates fall into this category as do a few lower species.  In evolutionary terms therefore, if an individual is socially adept then perhaps it has a greater chance of passing on its genes.  Therefore biological mechanisms underlying such a predisposition are likely to be selected for meaning they are likely to be widespread within the gene pool.

 

From a behaviourist point of view, much of our behaviour is copied or learned from others (social learning).  Individuals that are better at interpreting the actions of others will be better placed to copy and more likely to do so if they see others being rewarded for their behaviour (vicarious conditioning). Gallese et al (1996) Measured the brain activity of monkeys performing a grasping action.  Later when monkeys observed other monkeys making the same action their brain activity was the same.  This is the basis of the mirror-neuron system.  Behaviours we perform ourselves result in very similar brain activity to those similar behaviours we observe. The researchers concluded that this system allows for the action and understanding of others’ actions.

Does the mirror-neuron system exist in humans?

Rizzoletti et al (2006) got human participants to either watch the experimenters making various hand gestures or to make the gestures themselves.  Either way the neural activity in the hands was very similar.

PET scans identified the following brain areas as being involved:

Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS)	Responds to seeing body parts move
Inferior Parietal Lobule*(IPL)	Seems similar to the area involved in monkeys
Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG)

*such a sexy word!

This provides evidence for a similar system to humans but how can we be sure it acts to help us understand the behaviour of others rather than just copy it?

Umilta et al (2001)… an ingenious experiemt!

The researchers got monkeys to watch experimenters carrying out various actions. 

1. The experimenter is seen to reach for an item of food
2. An item of food is hidden from view behind a screen.  The researcher then reaches for it as in condition 1, but this time cannot be seen accessing the food.

Findings

Even when the food was hidden, more than 50% of the mirror-neurons still fired and half of these did so as strongly was when the food was in view.  Umilta et al concluded that the monkey brains were responding to the understanding of what the action entailed (i.e. getting food) even though the food could not be seen.

As a further test to show that it wasn’t the action per se that was triggering the mirror neurons, there was a third condition in which no food was hidden and the monkeys watched the same action as in condition 2.  This time the mirror neurons did not fire.  Clearly the firing was triggered by the understanding of the action. 

Dinstein et al (2007) measured the activity in five human brain areas, known to be involved in the mirror-neuron system, while they watched or performed an action. 

Although watching and performing an action resulted in the same brain AREAS being excited, the researchers could not say with certainty that it was the same NEURONS that were firing each time.  Scanning techniques are simply not sufficiently sophisticated to measure at this level. 

Autism and the mirror-neuron system

Baron-Cohen’s work suggests that autistic children lack a theory of mind.  If we assume that the mirror-neuron system is the basis of ToM then we would expect autistic children to have a defective MNS.

Depretto et al (2000) compared autistic children with non-autistic children as they either watched or attempted to imitate one of five facial expressions.  Expressions were either anger, fear, happiness, neutrality, or sadness. 

Findings

1. Autistic children showed less activity in the MNS as they watched or copied the expressions
2. The greater the autistic symptoms the lower the level of activity recorded.

However, there are issues with cause and effect.  We cannot be certain that the autism is due to this lowered level of activity.  Lowered activity could be due to the autism or a third factor could be causing both.

However, some autistic children have shown signs of cortical thinning (means exactly what it says on the tin) in areas known to be related to MNS.

But

Autistic children have a whole range of symptoms, only one of which is inability to understand or interpret the actions of others.  It is difficult to see how MNS could explain symptoms such as the savant-like abilities of some autistic children.

The MNS is not defective in all autistic children suggesting more than one cause of the disorder. 

Mirror neurons and autism:
To investigate this connection, Iacoboni et al studied the brain activity of 20 child subjects, half of whom had autism. The subjects saw 80 pictures of faces expressing anger, fear, happiness, sadness, or nothing in particular. The researchers asked some subjects to merely view the faces and others to imitate them.  In the group of autistic children asked to imitate the faces, the researchers found no activity in brain regions associated with mirror neurons.  The more severe the condition, says Iacoboni, the less active the mirror-neuron system seems to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emotion

Is the MNS involved in our ability to understand or empathize with the emotions of those we observe?

Phillips et al (1997) measured activity in two brain structures, the amygdale and the insula, both known to be involved in emotion and particularly in our response to disgust!  Participants were either exposed to disgusting stimuli (in the form of unpleasant smells) or they watched the facial expressions of other people exposed to similarly disgusting things. 

Both brain structures responded in a similar way regardless of whether the disgust was being experienced or observed in others. 

Note: the five main emotions are usually considered to be: love, happiness, anger, sadness, and fear.  However, disgust is often tested experimentally due to fewer ethical issues! 

It is also worth mentioning that the size of the response increased in proportion to the level of disgust evident on faces of those being observed.

In a similar follow up study, participants had electrodes fitted to their hands and they received painful electric shocks while activity was measured in the limbic system.  Later the participants watched as the electrodes were attached to the hands of a loved one.  When told that they would receive the same shock as they had experienced earlier a similar pattern of firing was noted in the same brain structure. 

However, as with earlier studies it is difficult to conclude that the very same neurons are being fired in watching and experiencing; just similar brain areas!

Phillips suggests that our understanding of others’ emotions occurs at two levels:

Cognitive understanding: we see the person being sad, disgusted etc. and have an understanding based on past experience of how this feels. 

Experiential: on observing a sad or disgusted person the sensory input is mapped directly onto a corresponding motor area that mirrors their response in our brain.  We then experience the same emotional response as the person being observed.

If this latter one is the case then we have a biological mechanism for empathy and true appreciation of the feelings of others.  It might also partly explain certain contagious behaviours such as laughing and yawning. 

Overall evaluation of the Mirror-Neuron System

The model does seem to offer a sound biological explanation of our ability to understand others. 

However there are a few issues:

Methods: the fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) technique is unable to measure specific neurons.  Therefore, as already mentioned we cannot be certain that the very same neurons are being fired when we experience and when we observe.

Much of the research has been carried out on monkeys who have nowhere near the same social repertoire as humans.  We therefore must have a more sophisticated MNS or have other, as yet undiscovered, biological systems underpinning theory of mind.

Gopnik is a particularly staunch opponent to the MN theory.  Apart from its basis in animal research she is also opposed to the reductionist nature of the theory.  Can altruistic behaviour and true empathy be reduced to activity in a set of cells?  Similarly Eisenberg (2000) believes that early understanding of another person’s distress may be the result of MNs but a fuller appreciation and true empathy only comes about through perspective taking which she believes involves far more than the simple MNs. 

Gopnik also questions the innate nature of mirror neurons.  Since imitation is present at birth it has led many to assume that we must be born with a mirror-neuron system fully intact (innate).  Gopnik suggests the possibility that mirror neurons arise through experience.  Hebb suggested the theory of cell assemblies, in which neurons that fire together, wire together.  They form a connection.  Mirror neurons therefore may not be present at birth but develop through the process of association due to experience. 

Mirror neurons and language acquisition

Language development is probably the most important of all human abilities and seems to be the one characteristic that sets us apart from all other species.  Non-human animals communicate but practically all impartial research suggests that it is only humans that have the ability to impart information about experiences and acquired knowledge. 

The main language areas in the brain are Wernickes (concerned with the understanding of language) and Broca’s area (concerned with language production), both named after their respective discoverers. 

Attempts to teach language to other species have generally failed, though the Savage-Rumbaughs and others would disagree.  What seems essential to language acquisition is immersion.  Rather than sitting down and being formally taught to acquire language, humans seem to pick it up by watching and listening to others and then imitating.  Clearly mirror neurons would be useful in this process.  Binkofski et al (2000) used brain imaging techniques to show the existence of mirror neurons in Broca’s area.  

 

Latest stuff

One of the main criticisms of research into mirror neurons centres on our inability to measure activity in specific neurons.  Research simply shows that similar regions of neurons fire when observing and actually doing or experiencing.  These regions comprising perhaps half a million neurons! 

However, Iacobani (reported by Slack 2007) measured the activity of individual neurons in the brains of volunteer epileptics.  The researchers were trying to find neurons responsible for triggering seizures.  The volunteers performed simple actions and then observed others performing similar actions.  Meanwhile the activity of 286 individual neurons was recorded by the researchers.  They reported 34 neurons were the same pattern of firing was triggered by both performing an action and watching it being performed by others (mirror neurons).  Interestingly they found different types of MN including one that becomes suppressed when we watch others perform the same action.  The researchers concluded that this might explain why we don’t blindly copy everything that we observe and perhaps how we distinguish between our own behaviour and that of others. 

More primitive motivations, such as hunger, might also govern the mirror system.  In a study by Decety et two groups of subjects were shown a video of a person grasping food.  Some of the subjects had fasted for at least 12 hours before the viewing; others had a meal before the session.  Using functional imaging, the researchers found greater activity in the mirror systems of the hungry subjects. When a blender brain is running on empty it reacts strongly to the site of fresh fruit; when it’s filled to the brim with a smoothie, it’s less interested
The evolutionary benefits of an efficient and well-regulated perception-action system that swings into action shortly after birth are numerous. A glimpse into another person’s emotions might help predict that person’s behavior. Understanding the face of pain from an early age could keep us from touching a hot stove. At a greater social level, a personal insight into the experiences of others could aid cooperation.

 

My Brain’s a Blender (adapted from ScienceDaily, May 6, 2007)  
Psychologists are finding that the mature adult mirror system does indeed seem to regulate itself, particularly when it comes to empathy.  Such checks and balances occur for our own good.  If, through the mirror system, we were able to completely experience the pain of another person, we might constantly feel distressed.
Clarifying this phenomenon might require a temporary substitute for the term “mirror system.”  A regulated mirror system acts not as a complete mirror, merely flipping around another’s emotions, nor as a sponge, expelling only what it soaks up. Perhaps the mind is more like a kitchen blender: We understand the raw feelings of a friend in pain, but instead of devouring them whole we mix, chop, and purée them into a more digestible serving.  Our blender brains enable us to simultaneously provide support and avoid emotional paralysis.
“The best response to another’s distress may not be distress, but efforts to soothe that distress,” (Jean Decety 2006).  “Empathy has a sharing component, but also self-other distinctions and the capacity to regulate one’s own emotions and feelings.”
In one study, writes Decety, researchers showed subjects a video of patients feeling pain as a result of medical treatment. Some subjects imagined themselves in the patient’s position, whereas others merely considered the patient’s feelings.  Patients who put themselves in the painful shoes showed stronger neural responses in regions of the brain involved in experiencing real pain.